A former Police Officer has hit out at the state of "lawless Britain" as the National Crime Agency exposed their latest money laundering raid - targeting barber shops and vape shops.
Operation Machinize saw 265 premises visited by police in a money laundering crackdown - seizing more than £40,000 in cash, 200,000 cigarettes, 7,000 packs of tobacco, over 8,000 illegal vapes and two vehicles.
Hailing the success of the operation, Deputy Director of the National Economic Crime Centre at the NCA Rachael Herbert said: "The excellent results from the first iteration of Operation Machinize are testament to the tireless work of officers across the country, and demonstrate our resolve to clamp down on organised criminality abusing the high street."
Discussing the raid on GB News, retired police officer and director of the Law and Order Foundation Norman Brennan claimed that in his local area alone, he has "never seen so many empty barber shops" on the high street in his 46 years of living there.
Norman Brennan hit out at 'lawless Britain' as police crack down on money laundering schemes
GB NEWS/CPS
Brennan told GB News: "I've obviously been following these raids, and I'm also aware from my own area, the London Borough of Richmond, I've never seen so many barber shops open in the 46 years I've lived in this borough.
"In fact, I think we've got more barber shops now than coffee shops. At least when I drive past the coffee shops, I see people in them - when I drive past barber shops, predominantly, they're empty."
Detailing the money laundering schemes that are taking place across Britain, Brennan compared such operations to a "launderette", where "dirty money" is put through the business and "comes out clean".
He said: "I think what a number of these shops are, it's a bit like going into a launderette. You take your dirty money in, you put it through the washer and it comes out clean, through what apparently is deemed as a legitimate business.
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Operation Machinize saw hundreds of barbershops targeted in an NCA-coordinated crackdown
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"And I'm sure this runs into hundreds of millions of pounds of money laundering."
When asked by host Tom Harwood how such businesses have been able to operate so "prodigiously" under Britain's system, Brennan claimed that Britain is "lawless".
Brennan said: "It's because Britain is lawless. We have basically sleepwalked into a state of anarchy, and there are no police officers to police.
"These criminals know that the police cannot cope and they're taking advantage of it."
Brennan told GB News that many barber shops, nail bars and car washes are run by 'criminal gangs'
GB News
When asked by host Emily Carver how they are able to start up these businesses, often used as a front for their schemes, Brennan explained that most often, family members with "clean records" are used to open the business.
Brennan concluded: "They probably send people over, or people are in Britain that are law abiding members of the public, part of their families or known to their gangs. So they keep quite clean, and they've got a clear record.
"And if anybody asks any questions, they say their family are setting them up in business and before you know it, not all of them, but sadly too many, including nail bars as well and even these car washes are actually criminal gangs."
He added: "They're not necessarily fleecing anyone, but what they do is they don't charge too much and you think that's a good result.
"But behind the scenes, hundreds of thousands of dirty money is being cleaned and put back into the system, often to go towards drugs and other criminality."
