THOUSANDS of illegal vaping and tobacco products were seized across Worcestershire last year.
Trading standards officers removed more than 170,000 illicit cigarettes, 71kg of hand rolling tobacco and 4,200 non-compliant vaping products from businesses across the county in 2025/26.
The next challenge is to find the places criminals are storing illegal stock away from the high street.
SEIZED: Items seized during a raid on a Worcestershire business (Image: West Mercia Police)
Simon Wilkes, Worcestershire’s head of trading standards, said officers operate to the same intelligence gathering model as the police.
“Those numbers are down on previous years,” he told Worcestershire County Council’s overview and scrutiny performance board on Thursday (October 15).
“The vapes number is down, probably because of the change in the law and the outlawing of single-use vapes in 2025.
“Businesses now have access to relatively cheap compliant vapes so we’re not seeing the non-compliant vapes in the volume that we were.
“In terms of the illicit tobacco, this is because criminals are adapting – they’re keeping much less on premises now. They’re storing the product elsewhere and part of the work this year is to work out how we find those storage places.”
Andy Boote, head of service for safer communities, said: “Tackling illicit tobacco and concerns around that isn’t just a trading standards issue.
“There are implications there for public health, community safety and of course organised crime.
“In addition to removing significant volumes of illegal products, the team has really successfully expanded the closure activity across the county.
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“This is particularly impressive in a two-tier authority, where Simon and the team have to work really closely across county and district responsibilities to ensure that shops who persistently sell illicit products are closed and removed from the high street.”
He said there had been “significant developments in that work, this year in particular”.
Marc Bayliss, deputy police and crime commissioner for West Mercia, said there is “often a web illegal activity that can include modern slavery, prostitution and other activities we don’t want in our communities”.
