[O]ver the past week and in the run up to Christmas Police Scotland officers from the Lockerbie and Motherwell Trunk Road Patrol Group have been working worth staff from the Trading Standards Departments of Dumfries and Galloway Council and South Lanarkshire Council checking for counterfeit goods in transit using the A74(M) corridor between Scotland and England. The teams were ably assisted by a tobacco detection dog Dixie.
The checks were held at the service areas at Gretna and Johnstonebridge and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency checkpoint at Beattock Summit. Over the course of the checks, 113 vehicles were checked out and offences relating to road traffic, counterfeit goods, HMRC cigarette duty and environmental offence relating to the transportation of chilled goods were detected.
Sergeant Bob McNay at Lockerbie said: “The issues around the sale of counterfeit goods is always at its peak in the run up to Christmas and were only too happy to assist colleagues in Trading Standards to carry out these checks and will look to doing similar in the future.”
