(liverpool echo)
CHINESE gangs are flooding Liverpool with cheap killer cigarettes.
Organised gangs are selling illegal cigs loaded with dangerous levels of arsenic, glass fibres and rat droppings.
The cigarettes are being sold in pubs and newsagents throughout the city.
Trading standards said the gangs are setting up cigarette “factories” in terraced houses in the Kensington area.
They are staffed by illegal immigrants who work round the clock .
In many cases up to 25 immigrants will be squeezed into a three-bedroomed terrace.
They are forced to work long hours by gang masters who put pressure on local newsagents to buy their goods – mainly fake Imperial brands and rolling tobacco.
The cheap cigarettes can contain 60% more tar, 80% more nicotine and 130% more carbon monoxide than legal brands.
And in a bid to cut down the illegal trade, a new dedicated alcohol and tobacco unit is being set up in Liverpool.
It will be made up of Merseyside police officers, revenue and customs officials and trading standards staff.
Principal tobacco control enforcement officer John McHale said the same gangs were distributing pornographic DVDs around the city.
He said: “The reasons we are so concerned about the trade is that it funds organised crime, with the triads in Liverpool and Manchester heavily involved.
“People are also being trafficked into this country to be exploited.
“Gang masters tell them it will cost them £25,000 to be brought into the UK and then the immigrant has to spend the rest of their life paying off their debt.
“They are forced to make and sell the products – and the young girls are encouraged to go round pubs touting the cigarettes.
“They sell for just £2-£2.50 and we estimate that each seller will pass on up to 100 packets a day.”
