Thousands of illegal vapes and cigarettes were seized by police in Liverpool city centre.
Inspectors from Liverpool Council's Alcohol and Tobacco Unit teamed up with Trading Standards and Merseyside Police on Friday in pursuit of mobile phones which had recently been stolen in the city. They decided to focus their attention on the London Road and Ropewalks areas of the city where they found ten stolen phones for sale in a number of different shops.
The shops were also caught selling a haul of counterfeit goods including £15,000 worth of fake Apple phone cases and thousands of illegal vapes and cigarettes. Police are now trying to trace the stolen mobile phones back to their rightful owners.
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A police spokesperson said: "Our city centre local policing team have already made arrests in relation to these thefts and robberies and will keep patrolling the city to deter other offences and develop intelligence on who else is carrying out these crimes and where they are selling these items."
Sergeant Craig Winstanley said: "Today's joint visits to quite a few different premises have led to us examining 123 mobile phones and establishing that at least ten of them had been recently reported stolen. Our visits have also uncovered lots of other counterfeit and illegal items being sold in some of the shops we visited.
"We want the city centre to be a safe place to enjoy, night and day, and we'll keep working with the council and other partners to make sure it is."
