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Years of a new grooming threat hiding in plain sight on our high streets.
We have complaints that vapes and all illegal goods are perhaps given free on some occasions to children in return for sexual favors. We've had those complaints before.
You're worried you're worried that there's some sort of child exploitation thing going on here as well?
I do. I think it's an epidemic. Yeah.
The authorization has come through for the closure notice.
The team at Dudley Trading Standards may seem like unlikely foot soldiers in the battle against child exploitation. Khaldeep and Richard spend their days shutting down rogue vape shops and mini marts, not least for illegally selling vapes to kids.
I had one the other day, a child as young as 11, purchasing, vapes from a shop. It's just disgusting.
They could be offered drugs, vapes, cigarettes. That is a danger.
Their work has led them to believe that even with all that's known about child grooming, they've uncovered a new hidden front line.
We get the people behind the counter to empty their pockets. We've been in situations where they empty their pockets, and they've got reams of condoms. I once came across a book, and it was basically wrote written in Kurdish, and, basically, they were learning English words for, like, you're pretty. I love your hair. You know, you're young and beautiful.
The team performs a kind of unofficial child protection service. They prioritize the potential grooming threat among the shops they shut down.
Our priority is, number one, we stop that shop first. So we'll focus all our efforts on a particular shop, get that closed down.
Last summer, they took action against the shop after intelligence men involved were driving 12 year old customers in cars to an unknown location.
Let's rock and roll.
The shop they're going to shut down today is not one they suspect of grooming, but they do suspect it has worrying links to organized crime.
We've already had a tip-off that they're trading at the moment. Right now? Right now.
They believe the last but one owner is still involved in the business, and he is a man charged with rape and strangulation.
So we won't probably see the big bosses today. We will just see them Indians today operating the shop on their behalf.
The shop has already been caught selling vapes to children in an undercover sting.
We sent a 15 year old volunteer in to buy a vape. So you gotta be 18 to buy vapes, and, no questions asked. They just sold. Right.
My name is Richard Timmins. I'm from, Trading Standards. We're going to be closing down the shop in its entirety.
The team drill through the shutters to stop them being reopened. The people behind these shops try anything to avoid being closed, including repeatedly changing owners. They have tried to shut this shop down twice before. It just keeps reopening to the point where the person running this place took the door off so they could stay open twenty four seven, and there's literally no door here. It's just a shutter.