IN VIDEO and PICTURES: £150,000 illegal cigarettes haul sniffed out in Wolverhampton off-licence raids

They have a clear plan for their day: Raid several off-licences in Wolverhampton with the aim of seizing illegal stashes of cigarettes and booze.

Shops on the outskirts of the city centre are the targets, with trading standards staff already visiting four between 6am and 7am, dressed in paint-splattered overalls and work boots as if they had just come off a night shift, trying to buy bottles of cheap alcohol.

One shop was closed when the team arrived, another abided by the law and did not have any illegal wares to sell but two others made sales. Just a few hours later, the cover was lifted and the team raided those two shops.

In the first store, dog handler Stuart Phillips and detection dog Scamp discovered huge stashes of illegal cigarettes.

Hiding places for the smokes included a small alcove behind a drinks shelf and a secret compartment in a pillar, where coffee had been stored at the bottom in a common tactic to try and put the sniffer dogs off.

Mr Phillips said they often find curry stored near illegal stashes for the same reason.

An empty kit bag in a back storeroom was also alerted to by Scamp, indicating that this was the bag used to bring the cigarettes into the store. Sports Direct carrier bags and plastic tartan bags are also found to have been used.

Finally, in the flat above the shop, a small room secured with a padlock and keypad lock is forced open. The space looks to be an old staircase that has since been closed off and it is filled with thousands of packets of smokes.

In the second shop, while nothing is found inside the store itself, a locked door leading to the flat upstairs causes Scamp to indicate there may be something lurking behind.

A staff member says she does not have a key but with a warrant secured for the premises, police force open the door with a crowbar and find a small kitchen with stacks of alcohol – some has the required UK duty stamp on it, but other bottles found inside bags do not.

Inside a stove, dozens of packets of illegal cigarettes are also found, with more in drawers.

Upstairs, Scamp is once again indicating as he sniffs under a closed door. When the floorboards are wrenched up with a crowbar in two of the rooms, more illegal cigarettes are revealed.

But the best find is yet to come, when Scamp sniffs along the skirting board of a brightly-papered wall which echoes when officers tap on it.

When the panel is removed, wooden stoppers are pulled out to reveal several columns of multi-packs have been stacked behind the wall, with each packet worth about £200.

It takes most of the day for officers to remove all of the illegal goods, and licensing manager Colin Parr, who leads the operation, said it is an unprecedented haul for the city. "This eclipses all other hauls. We estimate it is in excess of £150,000," he said. It will be a 'laborious and gruelling' task to catalogue all of the counterfeit and non-duty paid goods found in the stores.

In the forthcoming days the council will formally apply to have the licences reviewed. This could ultimately lead to the stores losing their licences and part of the investigation will also look into any criminal offences.