From: Hull Daily Mail
Just after rush hour, one of Hull’s busiest roads ground to a halt in a screech of police sirens and flashing blue lights.
To the bemusement of hundreds of pedestrians and motorists on their routine daily grind, about 50 plainclothes and uniformed officers in more than half a dozen police vans descended on Spring Bank in west Hull as part of a national criminal crackdown.
The police invasion, which centred on a block of shops between Stanley Street and Park Street, was part of Operation Trivium – a national effort to tackle foreign crooks operating in the UK.
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They formed a long, snake-like police presence down the road in the hope of flushing out suspects behind the £600,000-worth of illegal cigarettes and tobacco discovered in a police raid earlier this year.
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“There is a lot of stuff going into the cigarettes and alcohol, and in both cases they can be quite damaging to your health.
“The tar content in a lot of counterfeit cigarettes is really high, so the knock-on effects are massive. But sometimes worse is the alcohol used within some of the spirits.
