More than 2,700 High Street premises were raided and over 920 people arrested during a month‑long operation coordinated by the National Crime Agency (NCA) to disrupt money laundering, illicit trading and illegal working linked to cash‑intensive businesses, the body has revealed.

Operation Machinize 2 ran throughout October and involved every UK police force, regional organised crime units, Home Office Immigration Enforcement, Trading Standards, HM Revenue & Customs and Companies House, according to the NCA.

The agency said authorities seized more than £10.7 million in suspected criminal proceeds and destroyed £2.7 million worth of illicit commodities, including 70kg of cannabis, 111,097 illegal vapes, 4.5 million illegal cigarettes and 622kg of illegal tobacco – equating to an estimated £3.4 million of duty evaded.

More than 450 companies were referred to Companies House for further investigation, and 341 referral notices were issued for illegal working and renting.

Targeted visits focused on mini‑marts, vape shops, barbers, nail bars and takeaways, which officials say can be exploited to disguise criminal cash, sell illicit goods and evade tax. The NCA estimates at least £12 billion of criminal cash is generated annually in the UK.

Rachael Herbert, director of the national economic crime centre at the NCA, said: “Thousands of officers have been deployed up and down our country, targeting criminal profits and the means of generating them. Hundreds of thousands of harmful and illegal products have been taken off our streets, and over £10m in cash, frozen in bank accounts and criminal assets seized. Depriving criminals of their source of income has a real impact, limiting the amount of funds they can reinvest in further offending and deterring them from taking spaces on our High Streets that could be used by legitimate businesses.”

Sal Melki, senior lead for Machinize 2 at the NCA, said: “We have learnt a lot about the threat, the different types of offending occurring on our High Street and what tactics are effective in combatting it… The scale of this challenge is significant, but it is also important to remember that the majority of shops on our High Streets are not considered suspicious.”

Security minister Dan Jarvis said: “Criminals are using these dodgy shops as fronts for serious organised crime, money laundering and illegal working, risking the future of the British High Street. We have intensified our joint efforts with law enforcement to dismantle criminal networks and relentlessly pursue those who use dirty money for personal gain.”

The Chartered Trading Standards Institute told the BBC that serious and organised crime on High Streets is now the number one threat facing its officers, and called for stronger powers and resources to close offending businesses.

---