A UK-wide crackdown on criminals exploiting high street businesses has taken place for a third time as the National Crime Agency leads the law enforcement response to organised crime on our high streets.

Through Operation Machinize, the NCA, alongside the National Police Chiefs’ Council, have co-ordinated a month of action targeting money laundering and the criminal use of cash-intensive high street businesses. Throughout October 2026:

• 3,029 premises visited or raided
• 349 arrests made
• £2.2m cash seized
• £3.7m account freezing orders obtained
• £4.2m in Duty Tax Evasion identified or prevented

In addition, there were £6.8m of criminal commodity seizures which included £2.6m worth of illegal drugs, 49,295 illegal vapes, 1,645kg of illegal tobacco and 6.3m illegal cigarettes.

The NCA estimates that at least £1 billion of criminal cash is laundered through a range of cash-intensive high street businesses like vape shops and barber shops in the UK each year and Machinize is pivotal to addressing this issue – removing offenders and depriving them of their criminal profits. The operation in total has now raided more than 6,000 high street businesses suspected of being engaged in criminality.

This operation involved enforcement action by every police force in the UK, as well as Regional Organised Crime Units, Home Office Immigration Enforcement, Trading Standards, HM Revenue & Customs, Food Standards Agency, Companies House and the Insolvency Service.

Operation Machinize is evolving. It’s first iteration focussed on barbers and similar types of shops being used as fronts for money laundering, the second iteration on the grey economy, and the latest iteration looking at dismantling the criminal business model by targeting the criminals further up the food chain who profit the most from degrading our high streets. Machinize is now not just a month of action and is being run around the clock, 365 days a year.

The criminals being targeted are not just money laundering but are engaged across the full spectrum of high harm criminality, such as drugs, immigration and human trafficking offences.

Throughout the month of action, the NCA set up a dedicated co-ordination cell for Operation Machinize to disseminate intelligence, support forces and co-ordinate the national response. This included public and private data sharing to prevent, detect and pursue criminals – utilising intelligence from our financial institution partners. This coordination and intelligence function is now an enduring capability to support Machinize activity on an ongoing basis.

Sal Melki, Deputy Director of Illicit Finance at the National Crime Agency, said:

“We are making a difference. Through our collective operations across the last 18 months we have raided over 6,000 businesses, arrested more than 1,300 offenders and seized £19m of criminal value.

“It is changing criminal behaviours and showing them the high street is no longer a safe place for them to operate. For a long time, criminals thought they could hide in plain sight, but those days are coming to an end.

“Through Machinize we have demonstrated what can be achieved through a joined-up national to local approach, bringing the specialist capabilities held in organisations such as the NCA together with local, on-the-ground expertise. We have engaged government at all levels and it is now recognised that we cannot turn the tide through enforcement action alone, and we are working together to develop policies, powers, attract investment, and build a whole of society view of what we want our high streets to look like. Operational enforcement is one piece of the puzzle – the burden to solve this problem for good is shared across government, the private sector and in our communities.

“There is much more to do. The threat is nuanced and not as straight forward as it seems. While we can identify the shops that don’t seem quite right, getting to the directors and criminal beneficiaries behind them is more complex and we are building the machinery required, with our partners, to do just this – identify them, shut them down, and take away their criminal profits at scale. My message to the criminals is this: the incentives to use our high streets for economic and organised crime are dwindling – Machinize is not a one off, it is happening now, any time and any place. We know who you are, and are coming for you.”

First Secretary of State, Louise Haigh said:

“For too long, our high streets have become a marker of decline. People have felt powerless to stop the rise of dodgy shops opening in vacant premises, while independent businesses, community centres and local pubs close their doors.

“With Operation Machinize, we are sending a clear message: if you try to use our high streets to launder money or sell illegal and illicit products - we are coming for you.

“This is what putting power back in the hands of communities looks like - giving local people the tools and resources they need to tackle criminality and anti-social behaviour, and breathe new life into our high streets.”

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said:

“Operation Machinize 3 has delivered a record-breaking crackdown on dirty money on our high streets.

“We've ensured hundreds of arrests, with millions of pounds seized from criminals. I’m grateful to the NCA, police forces and partners across the country for driving this month of action.

“This action is just one part of our fight against organised crime. Through the High Street Organised Crime Unit, we are backing the police and local responders with the tools and funding to shut down criminal shops and drive organised crime out of Britain’s high streets. We're determined to back good businesses and make our high streets somewhere to be proud of again."

Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said:

“These results demonstrate British policing at its best, with local frontline officers working alongside high quality specialist capabilities to take down criminal networks that blight our communities.

“People across the country will recognise this problem all too well. These dodgy shops are a visible stain on our high streets, dens for drug dealing, exploitation and the sale of dangerous counterfeit goods, and often a front for criminal gangs to launder their money and fund even more serious organised crime.

“I am proud to see local forces working alongside the National Crime Agency, City of London Police and other specialist agencies to bring the full force of the law to bear on these criminal enterprises and take action against a problem that communities tell us time and time again is a priority for us to deal with.

“It also embodies how policing should work in the future through police reform. Visible problems such as drug dealing and anti-social behaviour are often inextricably linked to complex criminal networks – we can only deal with these problems through local officers embedded in their communities working alongside specialists such as financial investigators and cyber experts.

“Doing more of this work to empower local policing and keep our communities safe from the threats of modern crime must be the guiding light for any reforms to how policing is organised in the future.”

If anyone has any concerns about criminal activity or suspicions about businesses predominately accepting cash only transactions, we urge you to get in touch either by reporting it to the NCA https://www.gov.uk/guidance/money-laundering-regulations-report-suspicious-activities or contact the HMRC https://www.gov.uk/report-tax-fraud

11 November 2026