Police anti-counterfeit raid discovers missing children
Children ‘went missing from asylum seeker hotels’ | Manchester police are cracking down on Cheetham Hill ‘counterfeit street’.
A police operation cracking down on a notorious ‘counterfeit street’ in the UK has discovered a handful of children, thought to have gone missing from asylum seeker hotels, who had been put to work for criminal gangs.
Vulnerable children and adults being targeted by organised crime factions and exploited is a serious problem in Manchester’s Cheetham Hill area, which is thought to be linked to almost half of the trade in fake goods in the UK.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) initiated Operation Vulcan last year to tackle the trade in fake goods and associated crime in the area.
The children found in the raid have been brought to the attention of social services, the BBC reported on Wednesday.
Stephen Watson, chief constable of GMP, told the BBC that every case of a missing child was concerning and was “a manifestation of the great problem facing our country”.
“What we have seen in Cheetham Hill is some of these adults and children have been taken in by organised immigration crime and their labour has been exploited for various reasons,” he said.
Operation Vulcan
The UK ‘capital for counterfeit’ covering the area between Cheetham Hill and Strangeways is well known for cheap, knock-off designer goods. It is also a centre for more serious crime as a result of this trade, including slavery, exploitation of immigrants and money laundering. GMP says there were 54 reports of modern slavery incidents in Cheetham Hill in 2021.
There is also a significant trade in illegal medication in the area, with GMP stating that they seized one million tablets of illicit prescription drugs in a single operation in November last year.
Through Operation Vulcan, GMP is partnering with other agencies to “put an end to the sale of counterfeit goods in Cheetham Hill and the subsequent proceeds of crime associated with the profits”.
Watson told the BBC that his force had shut down 79 shops and seized 254 tonnes of fake goods over the last three months.
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