The Trading Standards team at Barking and Dagenham Council take sales of illegal cigarettes and tobacco very seriously and regularly carry out operations to seize these products from local shops.

In the year 2022-2023, Trading Standards carried out 136 complaints visits to premises suspected of supplying illicit and counterfeit tobacco. These visits often included raids carried out using specialist sniffer dogs to detect concealed storage areas.

In total 58,906 units of illicit cigarettes and 3kg of hand-rolling tobacco was seized amounting to the value of more than £36,000.

Councillor Syed Ghani, Cabinet Member for Enforcement and Community Safety said: “Protecting our residents is a priority for us and getting illegal products off the streets is key part of this.

“Illegal cigarettes or tobacco can contain ingredients that could be harmful to people’s health and often don’t have the correct health warnings on the packaging. The council is determined to stop this as the sale of illicit tobacco is linked to organised crime.”

The availability of cheap and illicit tobacco prevents smokers wanting to quit smoking as well as fuels organised crime gangs.

If residents would like help to quit smoking, the Barking and Dagenham Stop Smoking Service provide free advice and support to quit and they can be contacted by calling 020 8724 8018 or emailing healthy.lifestyles@lbbd.gov.uk

To report a shop suspected of selling illicit tobacco products, residents should email Trading Standards on tradingstandards@lbbd.gov.uk.