£1m worth of illegal goods seized from Oxford Street candy shops
Westminster City Council says it has seized over £1 million of illegal and counterfeit products from Oxford Street’s souvenir shops and American candy stores.
This comes after it was reported that at least 11 Oxford Street candy shops are due to change hands.
In the latest raid since operations began 15 months ago, a variety of items totalling a value of £145,000 were seized, including illegal vape pens, counterfeit mobile phone cases, unsafe charging lead, power banks and travel adapters, and counterfeit Airpods.
Councillor Adam Hug, leader of Westminster City Council, said: “Yesterday’s raid on US candy store & souvenir shops on Oxford Street is the latest in our ongoing operations to stop the sale of unsafe or illegal goods and means that over the past 15 months, we have now seized more than £1m in items from super strength vapes to designer fakes. That is an astonishing amount of fake and potentially dangerous items taken off the streets of the West End.”
Property agency Savills recently revealed that a number of these Oxford Street stores are set to change ownership.
Many candy shops took over sites from gift shops during the Pandemic, and were able to remain open as they sold food. However, a revival of more traditional retail is likely to see many of these stores forced out.