Police in central London made a shocking discovery after tourists reported being overcharged for sweets at a shop on Oxford Street. The visitors were guided back to the store by officers to secure a refund, leading to a subsequent raid on the premises a few days later. Westminster City Council announced that they had confiscated a record £80,000 worth of counterfeit and unsafe goods from the shop.
Adam Hug, a representative of the council, expressed outrage at the exorbitant pricing of the sweets, stating that while they were aware of US candy stores overcharging customers, charging £900 for two packets was an unprecedented low. During the raid, two shop assistants managed to escape through a hidden panel in the basement leading to a secret room filled with suspected illegal items.
The confiscated items included thousands of American food products, over 30,000 cigarettes, and a variety of vaping products such as single-use vapes, nicotine pouches, heated tobacco, and related accessories like travel adaptors and power banks. The seized food items were found to be in violation of UK regulations due to lack of proper labeling and prohibited additives. Additionally, the cigarettes did not adhere to packaging requirements and were missing mandated warning images.
Westminster City Council noted a decrease in the number of combined candy and souvenir shops on Oxford Street, dropping from 40 to 18 during the pandemic by March 2025. Adam Hug highlighted the council’s commitment to protecting visitors from exploitation by cracking down on rogue US sweet shop businesses. He expressed hope that the decline in such establishments signaled an end to illicit practices in the area
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