HMRC crackdown targets criminals exploiting the high street.
- HMRC will carry out more than 30,000 interventions this year to tackle tax fraud and illegal activity on the high street.
- Action targets organised crime groups and others exploiting vape shops, barbers and convenience stores in hotspot areas.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) made unannounced visits to six souvenir shops across central London this week, as it significantly scales up its work to tackle illegal activity on the high street.
Officers from HMRC were joined by colleagues from Home Office Immigration Enforcement, Westminster Council Trading Standards and the Metropolitan Police.
The teams checked shops selling royal family, London and UK-themed gifts, along with magic and wizarding products. The visits resulted in:
- full till data downloads completed at all locations by HMRC, with tax compliance enquiries to follow
- three arrests by Home Office for immigration-related offences and a £40,000 civil penalty issued to a business for employing an illegal worker
- seizure of goods by Trading Standards worth £5,433 including 289 disposable vapes, 173 squishy toys, counterfeit bags, hats, scarves and unsafe travel adapters.
HMRC will use the intelligence gathered in its investigations to inform future action to tackle illegal activity on the high street.
The department announces it will make more than 30,000 interventions on the high street in 2026 to 2027, aiming to dismantle criminal networks involved in tax fraud, labour exploitation, and the sale of illicit tobacco and vapes.
The interventions will include unannounced visits, tax and organised crime investigations, seizures and warning letters.
HMRC and its partners will carry out UK-wide investigations targeting the controlling minds and enablers behind high street harm, including those using vape shops, barbers, souvenir shops, candy stores and convenience stores as fronts for money laundering and tax crime.
At last year's Budget, the Chancellor announced a new team of 350 criminal investigators to tackle evasion by small businesses. These investigators have now been recruited and around half of their work is focused specifically on disrupting harmful high street businesses and the people behind them.
Dan Tomlinson, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said:
HMRC is stepping up its action to go after illegal activity on our high streets. Owners of dodgy shops that are evading tax: we are coming for you.
Too many high streets have been blighted by illegal activity that harms local communities and undercut honest businesses, and we're determined to fix this.
We're increasing our action across the UK to target the criminals using shops as a front for tax evasion, money laundering and fraud.
This is a sustained, nationwide effort - and HMRC and its partners will use every power available to dismantle these criminal networks.
HMRC will also tackle till fraud by targeting the providers and end-users of electronic tools which are used to manipulate sales records to launder money, conceal sales and evade tax.
Last month, the Home Office launched a new High Street Organised Crime Unit with £30 million of funding, bringing HMRC together with other government departments, Trading Standards, policing partners and the National Crime Agency (NCA); to dismantle criminal networks who undercut the honest businesses and communities around them.
This builds on existing work, including November's Operation Machinize 2: this cross-agency initiative led by the National Crime Agency saw HMRC deploy more than 160 officers across the UK. The NCA operations led to 924 arrests and the seizure of £13 million in suspected criminal proceeds.
