ST HELEN’S ROAD: Two jailed over the £184,000 illegal tobacco trade run through a shop called Swansea Market

The stock room for an illegal tobacco operation on Swansea‘s St Helen’s Road was a first-floor flat holding more than 9,000 packets of cigarettes, a council prosecution has revealed.

Two men have been jailed over the operation, Swansea Council said: Rekawt Abdul, 29, of no fixed abode, for three years, and Mohamed Saifadin Mohamed, 26, of no fixed abode, for two years, after the case concluded at court.

The prosecution centred on the shop trading as Swansea Market at 17 St Helens Road. It shares its name with the city’s indoor market on Oxford Street, and nothing else.

The council’s Trading Standards officers, supported by police, had identified what they described as long-running issues with illegal vapes and tobacco at the shop.

In November 2025, officers found 360 packets of cigarettes and 632 pouches of tobacco there, with an estimated retail value of £31,040.

The bigger haul came in June, when a warrant was executed at a first-floor flat at 19 St Helens Road, following intelligence that tobacco stored there was being supplied to the shop’s staff.

Inside were more than 9,000 packets of cigarettes, 153 pouches of tobacco and 36 THC vapes, with an estimated retail value of £153,008, taking the operation’s combined stock to around £184,000.

Every cigarette and pouch examined was counterfeit, illicit or non-duty-paid, the council said, meaning none of it could legally be sold in the UK.

Cllr Andrew Williams, the council’s cabinet member for development, said: “This successful prosecution sends a strong message that Swansea Council will not tolerate businesses or individuals involved in the sale and supply of counterfeit tobacco or illegal vape products.

“These products can undermine legitimate businesses, fuel wider criminality and put people at risk. Our Trading Standards team will continue working with partners to identify offenders, close down illegal operations and take robust action through the courts wherever necessary.”

It is the second time this year the illegal tobacco trade has put someone behind bars in Swansea: in January, High Street shopkeeper Halkawt Arif was jailed for 16 months over a £45,000 haul hidden in secret compartments, a toilet panel and the base of his bed.

Sentencing Arif at Swansea Crown Court, Judge Huw Rees said the sale of unlawful tobacco and vapes was an increasing problem across the UK, and that its seriousness “cannot be overstated”.

The jailings land in the middle of the council’s widest enforcement run yet. On Monday, VH Vape Hub, Kalar Market and Midtown Vape Shop, all on Mansel Street, were ordered shut for three months after raids seized counterfeit tobacco and police recovered illegal drugs.

They joined a growing list. Two shops were shut in June, when Trading Standards team leader Rhys Harries promised “there will be more closures this year”, and nine were closed in last autumn’s Operation Ceecee and Marvel, which seized more than £77,000 of illegal tobacco and vapes and saw 11 people arrested.

Swansea has previously been ranked fifth in the UK for illegal vape seizures.

The council says enforcement alone leaves it chasing shops that reappear as fast as they are shut: last week councillors backed a demand for the power to block new vape shops from opening at all, telling the Welsh Government to match the planning controls England’s councils were handed this summer.

Moving that motion, one councillor described watching Trading Standards close a business in her ward, only for it to reopen across the road the next day under a different name. Cllr Williams put it plainly to the chamber: “They’re just playing catch-up all the time.”

St Helen’s Road has had a difficult summer beyond its shop shutters, with traders telling Swansea Bay News last month they “don’t feel safe at all” after two serious assaults on the street since June, and police building intelligence for enforcement action.

For the shop that borrowed the market’s name, the borrowing is over: its shutters now carry court closure notices declaring the business shut due to criminal activity on the premises.