Salford police find fake goods factory and pigeon farm in raid

Police arrested a 44-year-old man at a property at Cherry Hinton in Oldham after the raid

A workshop used to mass produce fake goods for shops across the UK has been discovered in a police raid.

Greater Manchester Police searched a warehouse in Salford and found a "badging factory" along with boxes of counterfeit clothes.

Officers also found a pigeon farm at the unit, but said "its connection to the operation was yet to be revealed."

A 44-year-old man who was arrested in Oldham on suspicion of trademark offences has been released on bail.

Machines used to apply counterfeit logos to unbranded clothes were found at the Cobden Street unit in Salford

The raids on Thursday morning were part of the wider Operation Vulcan, a sustained police effort to crack down on the counterfeit goods market in Cheetham Hill, which saw about £143m in fake items seized last year.

Insp Dan Cullum said the trade had been "successfully decimated", meaning the area could no longer be described as the "counterfeit capital" of the UK.

Cardboard boxes filled with fake goods were discovered at the unit

But a small number of people still wanted to "exploit the market and produce counterfeit items from warehouses in the back streets of Cheetham Hill", he said.

He stressed that the recent raid demonstrated how important it was that the community continued to look out for signs of illegal activity.