POLICE have seized more than £2 million of suspected counterfeit goods in a massive crackdown on serious and organised crime groups.
The huge haul was seized in the past two months from the Barras market in Glasgow.
Police say the illegal sale of counterfeit goods is part of a network of serious and organised crime, allegedly linked to drug gangs, prostitution and human trafficking.
The latest operation was launched after legitimate market traders raised concerns criminals were using the Barras market to fund illegal activities.
Chief Inspector David Pettigrew, area commander for East Centre and Calton, said: "Serious and organised criminals are making a lot of money from counterfit goods. We have a responsibility to act on this to make communities safer - and impact on crime.
"Every pound made from the sale of counterfeit goods goes towards funding serious and organised crime.
"This operation is two-fold.
"It's about cleaning up the area for the local community and disrupting the activities of serious and organised criminals."
Counterfeiters and illicit traders have been flooding the area with fake designer clothes, trainers, CDs, DVDs, designer watches and jewellery. Imported alcohol and illegal cigarettes were also seized.
Specially trained officers in the East End are working with a number of partner agencies, including Trading Standards, on the joint operation.
"This is part of an on-going operation aimed at letting the community flourish and getting rid of illicit traders from the area", Chief Inspector Pettigrew said.
A Police Scotland incident van is deployed to the Barras every weekend.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article