Inside the Police Raids Cracking Down on Fake Fashion

It’s just another day on Counterfeit Street. Located a drone’s throw from Strangeways prison, it’s home to dozens of shuttered shops selling knock-off clothes, jewellery, accessories and drugs from morning to night, all year long. The UK’s entire counterfeit fashion industry is worth £8billion: This half-mile or so stretch is thought to comprise £4billion of that.

FYI, selling or reselling counterfeit goods is illegal - it counts as distributing articles that infringe trademarks under the Trade Marks Act 1994, punishable by up to ten years in prison. Most of the time, though, it’s way less and buying them isn’t illegal at all, akin to old-school, down-the-pub pirate DVDs. While you wouldn't steal a car, or a movie, you might (well, kind of) steal a handbag. It’s why Bury New Road attracts millions of shoppers each year: It’s become a one-stop-shop for dealers, bad boys, footballers, fashion girlies, and Glasgow mums, all looking to score fake clobber for a fraction of the real price.

Once you’ve been, you know the deal. Walking past a line of spotters, who also aim to tempt you in restaurant promoter style, you’re ushered into a trove the size of a club cloakroom, stacked with the latest fake gear. These days, a lot of it genuinely feels like the real deal; ersatz Moncler jackets are robust, earning their £120 price tag; Stoneys come with all the trimmings and the Gucci monogram bags we inspect are, dare we say it, crafted well.

“Suppliers basically offer you an option of three grades: low quality, mid-quality or a super clone,” says James, an ex-Cheetham Hill seller whose name has been changed for his protection. He started out by shotting a low quality grade of fake Air Jordans on Bury New Road, before landing his own booth in an existing unit. Protected by the shop’s lookouts, James soon outgrew the original seller and took over, making up to £40,000 net profit per month. “I was only there for a few months because I was cocky; when the police came to the area I didn’t close, unless they walked past."

James’ time was soon up, after he attracted attention from other sellers for undercutting prices and outdoing quality. “I wasn't at the shop at the time, it was about 5am. The guy who owned the flat upstairs was storing drugs and the police must’ve thought there was some downstairs as well." A mate in the area gave him a heads up not to come in, and James later drove past to see £55,000 worth of stock being thrown into a police van. "It was a big loss and as far as I'm aware, a lot of the stock was sold to other shops, not destroyed."

He’s not alone. Today’s raid is one of a load that have taken place in the last few months as part of “Operation Vulcan”, an initiative designed to put an end to the area’s criminal activity. Once sporadic, the police raids are now happening almost daily. In the last few months, millions of pounds of fake clothes – plus drugs and phones – have been seized from, according to the police, over 30 different gangs operating in the area. 

Fresh from battering down a shop next to takeaway Kabul Cuisine, head of the operation DCI Neil Blackwood and DCI Jen Kelly speak to VICE, surrounded by prying locals and anxious shopkeepers. “As our officers were walking past, the door closed and we heard people shouting ‘help me’. Obviously, that’s false imprisonment,” they say, explaining that the shop next door is potentially packed with dozens of people, too. It’s later reported that 30 people were locked inside and it took five days to seize a cornucopia of clothes, watches and electronics.

James adds some inside intel on why it went down, gleaned from one of his friends who’s still selling in the area. “The tip off was they were arguing over money. A woman said to the owner: 'Because you've locked me in the shop, if you don't give it to me for this price, (£30 rather than £70) I'll shout for help,” he explains. “He said no, not believing she would shout, but she started to and the police heard.”

“The very nature of them shutting the doors demonstrates exactly what they're up to,” DCI Blackwood says. It’s also beneficial for the police: Section 17 enables officers to enter a premise with an emergency warrant if life is endangered, and so barricading bargain-hunters in a basement is enough of an excuse to whip out the crowbar. Police are also using their right to seize structurally unsound property: A lot of Bury New Road’s lock-ups fit the bill for not being fit for the Bill. “Some of the shops I've been in just aren't safe... a couple of flights of stairs are vertical,” James says. Their layouts are labyrinthine; upstairs and downstairs units join-up crudely and shoppers are often ushered out into disorientating car parks, back alleys and stairwells.

Most raids, though, are planned. “They usually happen between seven and nine in the morning. The police call the gas and electric company and they'll come to the shop, dig up outside the road and disconnect them to stop them from using the space again,” James explains. “The police will then force entry with a crowbar or petrol saw - or simply open the door if the seller's sat inside having his breakfast.”

They'll then call for back-up, go through what’s there is and put it in evidence bags, he continues. “They'll do their due diligence of the building before moving any goods, though, because it could be booby-trapped." As well as clothing, the police have been using the long arm of the law to seize perfumes, handbags, tobacco and Class C drugs. “Sometimes, if they’ve got space left in the van, they’ll start nabbing goods from buyers,” says James.

This is part of the police’s effort to, a bit like the scrap on coke, make the buyer think too. "People want a bargain, we understand the cost of living crisis and we're not here to interfere with everyday people's daily commute,” DCI Blackwood explains. “But they've got to understand this stuff is dangerous and the lifestyles it funds are dangerous. They're funding criminality and all the money never hits the UK economy.” Another cause for concern is the clothes themselves; they're not Kitemarked and many feature illegal, inflammable chemicals. Badges and logos are added to items in neighbouring units around the corner, likely by people earning well below minimum wage and without any employee rights.

But if it’s all this blatant, why hasn’t it been shut down before? The police officers point to a lack of resources in the past, which has now been rectified by a dedicated budget and manpower to crack down. James, though, has other theories. “Developers are pushing the council for the land – they want to build on it between 2024 and 2025, because it's so close to the centre... that land is worth a fortune," he says. He reckons the City of London Police may have got involved, too, due to potentially corrupt GMP officers on payroll or selling confiscated gear - and that the council may even have got a cash injection by doing the same. “GMP were caught selling stock back to certain shop owners at a bulk load cost and basically said, ‘Your shop’s safe, as long as our pockets are lined,’” James alleges. He didn’t give any evidence to back up his theory, though.

Whatever the case, it’s certainly working. Following raids in early December and – in true Grinch-style – on Christmas Eve, Bury New Road has been as dead as its name suggests. “I visited recently and it's like a ghost town; there were probably more police than people looking to buy," James says, adding that lots of sellers he knows are scared to open up. Like many others, he’s now relocated and moved online, selling gear via TikTok, WhatsApp and Instagram - when he’s not getting banned every other week. He still “gets messages all the time” asking him which shops are open in Cheetham Hill, but as many comments on his TikTok videos prove, tonnes of people are heading down to Bury New Road to find permanently shuttered-up shops, Operation Vulcan banners for claimed territories and vans stacked with the clobber they were looking to buy.

This IRL crackdown reminds you that Bury New Road isn’t just fake fashion; it’s a street steeped in all sorts of cultural history. Stephen Kingston, founder of the Heritage-funded archive project dedicated to the area, is passionate about its global significance. “If you look at the people along the road, they've all changed the world," he tells VICE in the flat he shares with his partner, artist Louise Garman. He reels off the road’s connections to John Cooper Clarke, Bugzy Malone, Morrissey, George Best, New Order, David Beckham and more.

“We're telling the story of Bury New Road, which is a story of everyone's life,” Kingston says, seeing the street as a microcosm of virtue-and-vice society: There’s gambling (Grosvenor Casino), education (ten schools), religion (mosques and synagogues), prison (Strangeways), a mental hospital and, of course, its “great” counterfeit fashion. Garman and her artist friend Sandra Bouguerch have even teamed up for a new art installation, featuring a Gucci belt, YSL sunglasses, and an Off-White handbag all bought for £100 on Bury New Road. Elevated on plinths and ribboned with police tape from a real raid, they’re set to be valued at the prices of the real versions in a future exhibition.

The exhibit is much a comment on value as it is cultural currency: “My conclusion was; so what? It's making things affordable for people," Kingston explains. “The arguments from the police are the same as they were for Manchester’s Market Street, decades prior, which is that it's helping fund gangs... Well, there's a lot of so-called legitimate businesses doing exactly the same thing." Bouguerch’s voiceover for the installation video dissects this further: “Who’s conning who? Trickster-trader, manipulator, manufacturer... Bury New Road, the easy way.”

But while Bury New Road’s fake fashion metropolis might now be made into art and poetry, can these bogus businesses still make a living? With a slew of successful raids and increasingly paranoid shopkeepers, it’s fair to say the police have made some mega gains. The endgame is to turn Bury New Road into a nice place to live and work. “We want legitimate businesses to thrive; we want this area to be for the law-abiding people who feel it’s hostile to them right now; we want to do the opposite and make it hostile to the criminals," they explain.

James, who’s currently making bank selling online to academy footballers and North East girlies, is confident it’ll just go elsewhere. “It's a market filled with individuals, such as myself, who aren't even driven by the money. I don't know what it is... it's like a dopamine hit,” he says. “When you start selling fakes, it comes naturally to you, it's the best feeling in the world. It'll never end,” he says, explaining he’s tried quitting the businesses but relapses anytime someone messages him with a shipment. He sees it as much of a high for him as it is for the consumer. “I want that buzz again - I might be selling fakes, but I'm making people happy."

Now acting as a supplier-consultant for Bury New Road sellers looking to move online, he’s confident that - whether virtual or physical - the market’s as inelastic as a dodgy Balenciaga tracksuit. “They might be able to close Cheetham hill,” he says, “but for the Manchester replica industry, this isn't the end.”

@KyleMacneill