Fake alcohol factories are being investigated across the Black Country and Staffordshire, it emerged today.

Scores of off-licences throughout the region have been caught selling counterfeit alcohol by customs and trading standards officers – some of it laced with deadly chemicals.

Top-level crime gangs are believed to be setting up their own factories and hiring staff to produce and bottle the booze before loading it into vans and targeting unsuspecting shops, costing the taxpayer up to £1 billion a year in lost duty.

Struggling to compete with supermarket deals on alcohol, traders are buying fake alcohol on the cheap and selling it without knowing what it is made up of.

But they were warned today it could have life-threatening consequences for those who drink it. Vodka seized and tested by experts contained high levels of methanol, which is used in anti-freeze and can cause blindness or even death.

Customs officers were unable to say how many sites in the Black Country and Staffordshire were being looked at because of operational reasons. But those who work in the illegal alcohol-producing factories are also being warned their lives could be in danger.

Earlier this year, five men died when an industrial unit being used as an alcohol factory went up in flames in Boston, Lincolnshire.

Trading standards officers in Wolverhampton have found fake vodka mixed with methanol, while a third of licensed premises in Sandwell were found to be selling counterfeit alcohol.

And a recent operation by Staffordshire County Council found one in five off licenses were selling counterfeit booze. Brandon Cook, trading standards manager for the authority, said: “Shops are having it delivered by vans in a fairly ad-hoc manor, so it must be coming from somewhere.

“We looked at more than 70 premises and I don’t think that will be over 70 different people delivering this stuff. There is a level of organisation. It could well be there is more than one factory.”

* Special report in Thursday’s Express & Star.