Last week, the police in Britain launched a three-week operation codenamed ‘Machinize’. It began with nearly 300 raids on nail salons, vape shops and barbershops, which in recent years have become a common sight on British high streets
Thirty-five arrests were made and 97 people suspected of being victims of modern slavery were placed under police protection. More than £1 million was frozen, money the police believe is ‘dirty’, generated by Albanian and Kurdish gangs that control much of Britan’s organised crime such as drugs and prostitution.
They also are heavily involved in the people smuggling business, a fact noted in 2022 by Dan O’Mahoney, then the Clandestine Channel Threat Commander. He told the Home Affairs Select Committee how the Albanian mafia was recruiting foot soldiers from the migrant camps around Calais. They paid their passage across the Channel in a small boat and in return the migrants joined the payroll in Britain.
As Operation Machinize was launched, Dan Jarvis, the security minister, announced: ‘High street crime undermines our security, our borders, and the confidence of our communities, and I am determined to take the decisive action necessary to bring those responsible to justice.’
Jarvis admitted that it won’t be easy because of the ‘scale and complexity of the criminality our towns and cities face.’
For many Britons their high streets have undergone a radical transformation in recent years as traditional shops have closed to be replaced by Turkish barbers, American sweet shops and nail salons. Many are legitimate businesses, some are not.
Britain should look across at France to see what happens when drug gangs are allowed to take control of town and city centres.
At the start of this year it was claimed that much of France now resembles a ‘narco-state’ because of the enterprises run by the country’s powerful drugs cartels, who generate around €2.7 billion in profits each year. Even the Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, has talked of the ‘Mexicanisation’ of France.
Each department in France has an anti-fraud committee, which includes the police, gendarmes, customs and tax authorities. Their task is immense. In the Greater Paris region in 2022 a total 45,000 anti-fraud operations were conducted and 300,000 counterfeit items were seized.
In the last ten years the number of barber shops in France has doubled, and there has also been a marked increase in the number of kebab shops. In February this year, Gil Avérous, the president of the French towns association, expressed his fear for the future. ‘We’re seeing a decline in the quality of the establishments that are moving in,’ he said. ‘Shops are gradually being replaced by kebab shops, barber shops and laundromats, many of which are known to launder drug money.’
The current law prevents town mayors blocking the opening of any new premise. Avérous, who is also the mayor of Châteauroux in central France, wants this changed so that mayors can better control the type of commerce in their towns.
Barbers are a particular source of concern because they can open without having a professional certificate. ‘If you go into the barber shop in question and ask if they have a qualification, they don’t,’ said Avérous.
Police frequently raid barber shops and discover wrongdoing. In February 2023, for example, they arrived at a barber’s in shop in Lorient and found that five of the six employees were in the country illegally. The manager of the shop had bought his hairdresser’s licence for €135 on the internet.
In the town of Clermont in the Oise, 40 miles north of Paris, the high street no longer has a fishmonger or a delicatessen, but it does have three kebab shops and three barbers. In exasperation the mayor, Lionel Olivier, told journalists last week that from now on the town hall will ‘buy buildings when they come up for sale, and then we’re in charge of the rental side.’
French towns are also being transformed through extreme violence, linked to the drugs cartels. Last month, Marie-Laure Pezant, spokeswoman for National Gendarmerie, said the countryside is ‘seeing more violence and a more systematic use of weapons.’
There are an estimated 10 million undeclared firearms in circulation in France, including 220,00 assault rifles, most smuggled from eastern Europe. It is obviously harder to smuggle weapons into Britain but the numbers are increasing. As long ago as 2018, the Guardian attributed the rise to ‘problems with UK border security and innovations by organised crime gangs.’
Neither of these problems have been resolved. Turkish criminals appear to be one of the biggest suppliers of weapons to the UK.
As for border security, 656 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Saturday, the most in a single day this year. As the BBC reports, 8,064 people have made the journey in 2025, a considerable increase on the 7,567 migrants who reached Britain in the first four months of 2024. What are their employment prospects? Doctor? Engineer? Barber?
Operation Machinize may achieve some positive results in the short-term but it will do little in the long term to reverse the sinister transformation of the British high street. The people smuggling gangs are too prolific and Britain’s borders too porous.
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