UK Govt announces a £30M crackdown on “dodgy” high street businesses linked to organised crime, establishing a new Unit to step up enforcement against ML, tax evasion, and illicit trade

The initiative will establish a new High Street Organised Crime Unit, backed by £20 million in enforcement funding and additional officers across key policing regions, alongside £6 million for Trading Standards to strengthen local inspections, compliance, and enforcement. The programme will drive coordinated raids, closures, cash seizures, and arrests across rogue barber shops, vape stores, mini-marts, and sweet shops suspected of being fronts for criminal networks, building on Operation Machinize, which has already resulted in hundreds of arrests and millions in seized criminal assets…