Oxfordshire Trading Standards step up efforts against illegal tobacco sales
Officers have seized 18,950 grams of tobacco and 14,900 cigarettes since March
Trading Standards officers in Oxfordshire are cracking down on the sale of illegal tobacco and cigarettes, having seized thousands of counterfeit products in recent enforcement visits.
Davina Walkin, Operations Manager at Oxfordshire County Council Trading Standards, said their efforts are ultimately to protect local people.
“These cigarettes are often really cheap and that’s what attracts children to buy them,” she said. "Also the cigarette trade is often associated with serious and organised crime."
Ms Walkin explained that while they do not support smoking at all, illegal sellers are undercutting retailers who stock regulated products.
"They're not paying the tax like legitimate businesses so it's not a level playing field," she said.
Recent figures provided by Trading Standards show that between March and May 2026, officers seized 14,900 sticks of cigarettes and 18,950 grams of tobacco.
Ms Walkin said the issue has remained persistent for a long time.
“Over the past 10 years, we’ve seized close to a million cigarette sticks,” she said. “It just keeps coming.”
She said officers are increasingly revisiting businesses previously caught selling illegal products, with tougher consequences possible for repeat offenders.
“When they go to court, they’ll have obviously stronger fines, maybe prison sentences,” she said.
Ms Walkin warned that consumers cannot be sure what is in these types of cigarettes.
“They're made in illegal premises, they're made in unhygienic conditions, often they don't have the correct health warnings on them," she said.
Trading Standards is also urging residents not to purchase them as it could help fund wider criminal activity.
“If you’re buying these products, you could be supporting serious and organised crime where they’re involved with people trafficking or with the drugs trade,” Ms Walkin said.
As part of Oxfordshire County Council’s tobacco control strategy, the authority is encouraging smokers to quit through Smoke Free Oxfordshire, a free support service available to county residents.
The council’s wider aim is to reduce smoking rates across Oxfordshire by 2030.
Ms Walkin said that public reports remain important in helping officers identify businesses selling illegal products.
“We act on an intelligence basis,” she said. “There’s a huge amount of businesses out there, so we need to apply our resources in a targeted approach.”
She added that Trading Standards has become more effective at detecting hidden tobacco products, partly through the use of specialist tobacco detection dogs.
“They can detect where people have hidden them behind panels, under floors, in some really inventive places,” she said.
Ms Walkin said the authority’s approach to enforcement has also changed in recent years.
“We will revisit businesses,” she said. “It's not that if we visited them the once and they’ve been prosecuted, we leave them alone.”
She added: “For businesses, our message to them is to expect us. We’re not going to stop in our pursuit of trying to make our county safer.”