Massive RISE in Barbershops in the UK and Links to Money Laundering

Surge in Barbershops on UK High Streets

Over the past decade, the number of barbershops in the UK has climbed dramatically. According to a report by retail analytics firms, the average number of barber shops per 10,000 people more than doubled from 2013 to 2023 – rising from 1.4 to 3.1 per 10,000 people. In absolute terms, the UK now has over 18,600 barbershops, with 665 new shops opening in 2023 alone. This ~15% increase since 2018 far outpaces population growth, indicating a proliferation beyond normal demand. By comparison, male population grew only ~6.5% in that period, so barbershops have been opening at a rate that suggests other forces at work. Industry observers half-jokingly attribute it to a “substantial increase in the standard of male grooming,” but many communities have noticed something peculiar: barber shops are appearing on every corner, often with few customers inside.

This trend is evident across the country. In England and Wales overall, the ratio of barbers per person has roughly doubled in ten years, as noted above. London has one of the highest concentrations – about 4 barbershops per 10,000 residents – and certain streets are densely packed with shops. For example, a two-mile stretch of Streatham High Road in South London has 17 barbers; similarly, a stretch of Kingsland Road in East London hosts around 25 barbershops within two miles. Smaller towns are not exempt: police in Shrewsbury pointed out one town centre area with five barber shops in close proximity, a number they deemed clearly unsustainable by legitimate customer demand. Even a Greater Manchester detective noted her local high street had 10 barbers (plus a mini-mart) on one street – an improbable scenario in a “sleepy” community unless something illicit is involved. In short, the high street barber boom is widespread, cutting across affluent suburbs and quiet market towns alike. This unusual surge has prompted scrutiny from the public, politicians, and law enforcement.

Red Flags and Suspicions of Illicit Activity

Widespread anecdotal evidence has raised red flags that some of these barbershops may serve as fronts for illicit finance. Locals have long reported seeing numerous new barber or beauty shops that remain nearly empty of customers, yet somehow stay open and even multiply. In multiple raids, police found CCTV footage showing that certain barbers “do not have many customers,” despite reporting surprisingly high turnovers. In one case, an inspector noted some shops were claiming £100,000–£150,000 in monthly income, an implausible figure for a small barber shop – “they aren't getting that amount of customers to warrant that amount of money,” an officer said bluntly. Such unexplained high revenues suggest money laundering, where criminal funds are injected and declared as daily business cash takings. Often these suspect shops insist on cash-only transactions, citing “broken card machines” or avoiding card fees – a practice that conveniently makes cash flows opaque. As one crime analyst put it, “when there is no trail of money changing hands, it’s much easier to keep your business practices undercover”. Cash-heavy operations allow illicit money to be mingled with legitimate haircut income, concealing the origins of the dirty cash.

Another warning sign is the sheer density of shops. When five, six, or seven barbers crop up on one street, locals understandably ask “how do they all stay open?”. Political figures have echoed these suspicions: for example, Reform UK leader Richard Tice made headlines in 2024 by highlighting “high streets with five, six, seven barber shops” – often cash-only “Turkish” barbers – that have no customers and yet proliferate. “These are fronts for money laundering and drug money,” Tice alleged, voicing a view that many Britons had been murmuring for years. (It should be noted that Tice initially offered no hard evidence for this claim, but it resonated with public observations.) Even legitimate industry members acknowledge the issue: the Chief Executive of the Hair and Barber Council, Gareth Penn, said “unscrupulous operators” have flooded the market with illegal barber shops, undercutting genuine businesses and sometimes causing public health issues (e.g. improper hygiene), all while evading taxes and regulations. The Hairdressing Council – a statutory body for the sector – confirms that because barbering in the UK is largely unregulated (no mandatory license or registration), it has become “vulnerable to exploitation and [is] enabling the widespread evasion of taxes”. In other words, the hidden economy of unregistered cash-based barbers provides perfect cover for illicit cash flows.

Law Enforcement Crackdown: Operation Machinize

By 2025, British law enforcement moved from suspicion to action. In March–April 2025, the National Crime Agency coordinated a massive country-wide crackdown codenamed Operation Machinize, targeting high-street businesses suspected of laundering money and exploiting workers. Over a three-week campaign, teams raided 265 premises across England and Wales – predominantly barber shops, along with nail salons, vape shops, mini-marts and similar cash-intensive outlets. This represented the first large-scale, coordinated offensive against the phenomenon that many had complained was “hiding in plain sight” on local high streets. The operation involved 19 police forces, plus HMRC (tax authorities), immigration enforcement, and Trading Standards officers working jointly. According to the NCA, the goal was to “prevent criminal gangs from using cash intensive businesses to conceal the proceeds of crime” and to “send a very clear message that our high streets are not a place to hide in plain sight”.

The results of Operation Machinize underscore the scale of the issue. Officers made 35 arrests during the raids, ranging from suspected money launderers to individuals involved in drug trafficking, fraud, and immigration offenses. They seized over £40,000 in cash along with troves of contraband: ~200,000 illicit cigarettes, 7,000 packs of tobacco, 8,000 illegal vapes, and even uncovered two small cannabis farms hidden at barber shop properties. Importantly, investigators froze bank accounts holding over £1 million believed linked to these businesses, indicating substantial funds were flowing through these fronts. Perhaps most disturbing, officers identified 97 potential victims of modern slavery during the operation (workers who may have been trafficked or exploited in these shops) and placed them under protection. At least ten of the raided shops were immediately shut down for various violations, with more closures expected as investigations continued.

Officials have been candid about what was uncovered. “We know cash-intensive businesses are used as fronts for money laundering, facilitating some of the highest-harm offending in the UK,” said Rachael Herbert, deputy director of the NCA’s National Economic Crime Centre. She noted the raids revealed links between these barber shops and “drug trafficking and distribution, organised immigration crime, modern slavery and human trafficking, firearms, and the sale of illicit tobacco and vapes”. In short, a web of organized crime was embedded behind innocent-looking storefronts. The NCA stated plainly that barber shops, vape retailers, nail bars, sweet shops and car washes are “often used by criminals to conceal the origins of illicit cash…mixing legitimate funds with criminal profits to hinder law enforcement investigations.”. This mirrors a known money-laundering tactic: commingling dirty money with real business revenue. Law enforcement on the ground observed that many of the targeted barbershops were staffed by illegal migrants or asylum seekers (often from Kurdish, Albanian, or Middle Eastern backgrounds) who were vulnerable and being exploited as cheap labour. In Shrewsbury, police found that two Kurdish asylum seekers were living in squalid rooms above a raided barber shop, indicating how trafficked individuals are used in these operations. Detectives believe criminal operators intentionally set up in “quiet” towns (Shrewsbury, Telford, etc.) thinking they won’t attract attention, but community suspicion in those areas was in fact running high. The message from Operation Machinize was that authorities are now actively “tracing the networks behind these shops and stopping the flow of criminal cash”. It was a clear statement that the barber-shop money laundering racket is real and being taken seriously.

Documented Cases of Barber Shops as Criminal Fronts

Beyond broad operations, there have been specific criminal cases confirming that some barber shops function as fronts for money laundering, smuggling, and other crimes. A number of high-profile convictions in recent years illustrate the variety of illicit activity hidden behind barber shop façades:

Terrorist Financing: In January 2023, Tarek Namouz, a barber shop owner in Hammersmith, London, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for channelling money to the Islamic State terrorist group. He had received tens of thousands of pounds in COVID-19 relief grants for his barber business, then sent up to £25,000 of that “taxpayer-funded” money to ISIS operatives in Syria. He even discussed buying weapons (bombs and rifles) for extremists. This case showed a barber shop being used to misappropriate public funds and finance terrorism, under the guise of a legitimate business.

People Smuggling: In April 2022, authorities exposed a human smuggling ring operating out of a North London barber shop. Gul Wali Jabarkhel, who ran a barbershop in Colindale, was found to be using his shop as a front while he recruited lorry drivers to illegally smuggle migrants into the UK. According to the NCA, Jabarkhel offered truck drivers £2,500 per migrant brought in from France or Belgium. He had connections to organized criminal networks (reportedly Albanian and Afghan groups) and showed “no regard for potential risks to the migrants’ safety,” according to prosecutors. After an aborted smuggling attempt in late 2020, Jabarkhel fled the UK, but was eventually captured; in 2022 he was jailed for 10 years for organized immigration crime. His case is a prime example of a “barber shop” serving as a hub for illegal immigration operations – effectively laundering the profits of smuggling and providing cover for the conspirators.

Small Boats & Trafficking: Another notable figure was Hewa Rahimpur, an Iraqi Kurd who had once co-owned a barber shop in Lewisham, South London. Rahimpur became a key organizer in the Channel small-boats migration racket. He used his experience and connections to purchase boats and engines for smuggling migrants across the English Channel, facilitating up to 10,000 illegal crossings. Although he had left the barber trade by then, his background shows the nexus between these community businesses and wider criminal enterprises. In 2022, Rahimpur was sentenced to 11 years in prison after being arrested for masterminding the purchase of boats for trafficking migrants. Media reports noted that he started as a barber in the UK before pivoting to illicit ventures, even running a sweets and tobacco kiosk as another front. His story underscores how seemingly innocuous shops (whether barbers or candy kiosks) can be repurposed to finance and facilitate organized crime – in this case, large-scale human trafficking.

Drug Trafficking & Illegal Casinos: In another London case, an upscale-looking barber shop was used as an illegal gambling den and drug safehouse. The “CSG Barbers” in Lewisham turned out to be a covert clubhouse for an Albanian drug gang run by brothers Edmund and Edward Haziri. Behind the barbershop front, the Haziri brothers orchestrated a cocaine supply line from London up to the Midlands (Leicestershire/Staffordshire), even setting up a DIY casino in a backroom for accomplices. The operation, dubbed the “Eddie Line,” ran for nearly a year out of the barber shop until it was busted in March 2022; the brothers were each jailed for 15 years, along with eight associates. This case revealed how a criminal gang literally operated out of a barber shop, using it as a meeting point, stash location, and money-laundering mechanism for drug profits.

Fraud and Counterfeiting: Outside of London, during Operation Machinize, police in Gloucester raided two barber shops on the same street and arrested a 40-year-old shop owner on suspicion of fraud. In the Southwest of England, raids on barbers uncovered hundreds of bags of counterfeit designer goods (over 130 bags seized in Bristol) being distributed through the shops. Officers also found illegal cigarettes and unlicensed vapes hidden on the premises. These incidents show that some barbershops are not only laundering money but doubling as points of sale for contraband goods and hubs for fraud (e.g. tax fraud or benefit fraud using false business records).

These examples – drawn from court cases and law enforcement reports – demonstrate that the concern is not mere speculation. Barbershops have been concretely linked to a spectrum of crimes: laundering drug money, funding terrorism, facilitating human trafficking, employing illegal labour, and selling illicit goods. In each case, the barbershop provided cover: it generated lots of untraceable cash, had a legitimate veneer to satisfy landlords or banks, and gave the criminals a physical base in the community. As Justine Carter of the anti-slavery charity Unseen observes, the rapid increase in barbers creates “an opportunity for people to be exploited” – both the workers in the shops and the financial systems around them.

Why Barber Shops? – An Appealing Front for Illicit Finance

Several factors make barber shops an attractive vehicle for money laundering and other illicit finance schemes in the UK:

Cash-Intensive Nature: Barber shops are traditionally cash businesses. Haircuts (often £10–£20 each) generate a steady stream of cash transactions, and many small barbers still operate on a “cash only” basis. Criminals can take advantage of this by injecting large amounts of illegal cash (from drug sales, etc.) into the daily till and simply claiming they came from haircuts. It is relatively easy to fabricate or inflate sales in a cash business since there’s no automatic digital record. As the National Crime Agency notes, gangs use such businesses “to enter cash into the financial system, mixing legitimate funds with criminal profits” to obscure the money’s origin. Unlike a shop that sells big-ticket items (which would be conspicuous if thousands in cash came through daily), a barber shop can plausibly handle lots of small cash transactions without raising immediate alarm. This makes laundering large sums in small increments feasible.

Low Overhead, Easy Setup: Opening a barber shop has relatively low barriers to entry. Retail space in struggling high streets can be rented cheaply, basic barber equipment is not costly, and no formal qualification or license is required to call oneself a barber in the UK. Organised crime groups have capitalised on this by opening or buying out barber shops easily as fronts. The lack of mandatory registration of barbers means authorities don’t have a tight handle on who is operating these shops. Criminals can register a new barber business (or take over an existing one) under a shell owner, and because the sector is so decentralized, it doesn’t attract the scrutiny that, say, opening a financial services firm would. In some cases, gangs prefer to take over existing shops (keeping the familiar name on the front) to avoid attention. Either way, a steady churn of new independent barber shops provides ample cover for illicit actors.

Staying Below the Tax Radar: Many barber shops operate on a small, self-employed “rent-a-chair” model, which deliberately keeps each shop’s official income below the VAT threshold and minimizes taxable revenue. In this model, instead of one company with many employees, a shop may claim to have multiple independent barbers each renting space. This fragmentation can be exploited to evade taxes and launder money. The Hairdressing Council warns that the sector’s predominance of cash-in-hand, self-employed arrangements has led to “widespread non-compliance elsewhere” – meaning lots of income goes unreported. For criminals, this is ideal: they can wash dirty money through the business and avoid tax reporting on it. HMRC has acknowledged that cash-based businesses like barber shops are at high risk of being used to legitimise criminal cash. In fact, the government’s National Economic Crime Centre has made “addressing cash-based money laundering” a strategic priority, precisely because sectors like these are so susceptible.

Front for Other Crimes: Beyond pure money laundering, a barber shop locale offers a convenient front for related criminal activities. Drug dealers can store product on the premises or conduct hand-to-hand deals under the guise of customers coming for haircuts. Some shops have been caught with hidden compartments built into walls or furniture to conceal drugs or cash. Illegal gambling or other vice activities can be hosted in back rooms. The regular foot traffic to a barber shop (even if sparse) provides cover for clandestine meetings. Moreover, multiple cases have shown that traffickers use barber shops to harbour illegal migrants or forced labour. Workers may be locked into cheap labour cutting hair for long hours, or even forced into other labour off-site, with the shop owner controlling them – a form of modern slavery behind a legit front. All of these criminal enterprises (drugs, human trafficking, illicit goods) generate cash that then circles back into the shop’s daily earnings reports, completing the laundering cycle.

In summary, barber shops tick all the boxes for an attractive money-laundering front: mostly cash sales, simple accounting, low scrutiny, and integration into the community which criminals can exploit. As one law enforcement official remarked, criminals felt “they can hide in quiet neighbourhoods” by running seemingly benign businesses like barbers, assuming nobody will notice. This complacency is now being challenged as authorities connect the dots between skyrocketing barber shop numbers and the shadow economy behind some of them.

Regional Patterns and Law Enforcement Observations

No part of the UK is entirely untouched by this trend, but certain regional patterns have emerged in the nexus between barbershops and money laundering. London – with its huge population and mix of communities – has seen both a major boom in barber shops and a number of related crime cases. As noted, London averages about 4 barbers per 10k people, higher than the national average, and specific districts (e.g. parts of South and East London) have an intense concentration of shops. It’s in these areas that multiple criminal schemes have come to light: from West London (Hammersmith) to North (Colindale) to South-East (Lewisham), barber-linked crime cases have been prosecuted. Metropolitan Police and the NCA have indicated that certain organized crime groups with roots in Albania, Turkey, Kurdistan and the Middle East are active in London’s cash-based businesses. Justine Carter of Unseen noted “there were thoughts that Albanian and Kurdish gangs were involved in setting up barber shops” in London as fronts for wider criminal enterprises. This aligns with the fact that several London cases (described above) involved suspects of Albanian, Kurdish, or Afghan origin leveraging barber shops. However, it is crucial to emphasize that ethnicity alone is not an indicator of wrongdoing – the vast majority of Turkish or Kurdish-run barbershops are legitimate. The pattern observed is more about certain criminal networks (often foreign-origin) who have found a foothold in this industry to facilitate illicit business. Law enforcement is focusing on those specific networks, not any entire ethnic community.

Outside London, the phenomenon often correlates with areas that have either a sudden abundance of cheap retail space or existing smuggling routes. In parts of the North of England, for instance, police and local officials have noted an uptick in barber shops on declining high streets (mirroring the national trend). Towns with relatively small populations but surprising numbers of barbers – as mentioned in Shropshire or Greater Manchester – became targets in Operation Machinize. Coastal towns or port cities might also be of interest, given the link to immigration crime (for example, Hull or Dover areas, although specific cases there have not been publicized in the same way). The South West region saw its share of action: Operation Machinize raids in Gloucestershire, Bristol, and Devon uncovered multiple illegal workers and counterfeit goods in barbershops. In fact, across the South West, at least 16 barbers and related premises were inspected and several arrests made in early 2025. This shows that the issue is not confined to big cities – even relatively rural counties had criminal elements using barber shops as cover.

One notable difference by region might be the type of illicit activity prevalent. In large cities like London or Birmingham, more cases of organized drug trafficking rings and financial crime using barbershops have surfaced. In smaller towns, authorities often highlight tax evasion and small-scale money laundering, or the presence of illicit cigarettes and vaping products being sold under the counter. But these are differences of degree; the core mechanism (using the barber shop for laundering cash and employing cheap, off-record labour) is similar everywhere.

It’s also worth noting that community suspicion and tips have played a role in prompting investigations. Across regions, residents have reported observations such as “there’s never anyone in that new barber shop,” or “three new salons opened on our high street and two are always empty”. Such reports, along with investigative journalism and even social media discussions, put pressure on law enforcement to respond. Politicians from various areas – not just London – have raised the issue. For example, an MP for West Worcestershire cited the doubling of barber shops and asked the Home Office about criminality in the sector. This suggests rural and suburban constituencies are noticing it too. The outcome was a Home Office acknowledgement in March 2025 that “cash intensive businesses such as barber shops can be exploited by criminals who seek to legitimise their criminal cash”, and a pledge that the NECC (National Economic Crime Centre) is prioritizing this threat.

In summary, while London and big cities have seen the most high-profile criminal cases, the broader pattern of barber shop proliferation and potential money laundering is nationwide. Regions with high immigrant populations have seen some gangs abuse the barber trade, and quieter regions have seen criminals hide in plainer sight until locals cried foul. The response, exemplified by Operation Machinize, has likewise been nationwide in scope.

Official Responses and Ongoing Investigations

UK law enforcement and regulatory bodies have publicly recognized the problem and are taking steps to combat it. The National Crime Agency estimates that around £12 billion in illicit cash is generated annually in the UK, and a significant share of that is believed to be laundered through “criminal front organisations on the High Street” – including barber shops. In late 2023 and 2024, as reports of dubious barbershops grew, multiple agencies ramped up efforts against this form of money laundering:

National Crime Agency (NCA): The NCA’s National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) flagged cash-based money laundering via high-street businesses as a strategic priority. By early 2025, the NCA coordinated the multi-force Machinize raids as discussed, signalling an unprecedented level of enforcement on this issue. NCA officials have given press statements underscoring that “money laundering is not a victimless crime” and that seemingly innocuous shops can be linked to violent crimes and exploitation in the background. The agency is now analysing the seized evidence (financial records, account freezes, etc.) from Operation Machinize to pursue further prosecutions for fraud and money laundering and to trace the higher-level criminal networks involved. Essentially, the NCA has moved to disrupt the business model where gangs thought they could launder money through barbers with impunity.

Police & Regional Units: Individual police forces and Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) have also been active. For instance, the South West ROCU led raids in their region (with local arrests and seizures as noted). Greater Manchester Police and West Mercia Police were heavily involved in the coordinated raids, given the clusters of suspect shops in their areas. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has economic crime coordinators working on the development of “Clear Hold Build” strategies to tackle serious organised crime infiltrating local businesses. Clear-Hold-Build is an approach (borrowed from counter-terrorism tactics) where authorities clear out criminal elements, hold the area with continued enforcement, and build community resilience. Applying that to barber shop fronts means after initial raids, police aim to keep scrutiny on those retail strips (preventing re-opening under new guise) and encourage legitimate businesses to return. This indicates a long-term approach to reclaim high streets from criminal control.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC): Tax authorities are closely involved, since tax evasion is often intertwined with money laundering in these cases. HMRC has been using financial data analytics and suspicious activity reports (SARs) to identify businesses with implausibly high cash revenues or anomalous finances. While specific HMRC operations haven’t been detailed publicly, they were part of Operation Machinize teams inspecting records on-site. Also, HMRC’s collaboration is evident in the freezing of bank accounts and assets (over £1m as noted) during the raids – a clear step to block further movement of suspect funds. One outcome to watch is whether HMRC pursues back-tax or proceeds-of-crime recovery from the owners of barbershops found to be laundering money.

Home Office and Government Policy: The Home Office (which oversees immigration and some financial crime policy) has acknowledged the issue in Parliament. In a written answer on 24 March 2025, Security Minister Dan Jarvis responded to a question about money laundering in personal care services by citing the doubling of barber shops and affirming that “cash intensive businesses such as barber shops can be exploited by criminals”. He noted that this is why tackling cash-based laundering is a priority for the NECC and highlighted the increased operational response (like the Machinize raids) underway. Jarvis’ answer also mentioned the NECC’s work and the NPCC’s strategy, indicating high-level coordination. Separately, in public comments, Jarvis stated the government is “committed to making the UK an even more hostile environment for organised crime” on our high streets. This suggests potential policy measures beyond policing – for example, reviewing regulations on new business registrations, cash transaction reporting, or mandates for licensing certain high-risk business categories.

Calls for Regulation: Industry bodies and some MPs are calling for regulatory reforms to close the loopholes. The Hairdressing Council has urged the introduction of a mandatory license or registration system for hairdressers and barbers to help authorities keep track of who is operating and to enforce standards. They argue this would make it harder for fake businesses to proliferate and would curb tax evasion and employment law violations in the sector. Thus far the UK has no legal requirement for barbers to be registered, but the recent crime concerns are giving new weight to the Council’s long-standing campaign for regulation. Legitimate barbershops generally support these moves – many honest barbers feel undercut by those who dodge taxes and launder money, and they’ve pressed for crackdowns on “unscrupulous” shops that tarnish the industry’s reputation. Even local governments might step in: for instance, some councils could use planning or licensing laws (where applicable, e.g. if a barber offers tattooing or other licensable services) to keep a closer eye on these businesses.

Moving forward, we can expect a combination of continued enforcement and new preventive measures. More raids and follow-up investigations are likely as the NCA analyzes intelligence from Operation Machinize (the NCA hinted that the 265 raids may have only “scratched the surface”). We may also see tighter monitoring of cash businesses – possibly stricter anti-money-laundering (AML) obligations extended to certain high-risk sectors, or joint task forces between financial investigators and local police to spot red flags (like extreme cash income reports or repeated “change of ownership” of barber shops). The public’s role is not negligible either: authorities have encouraged people to report suspicious signs such as consistently empty shops or cash-only policies in unlikely circumstances. Given the public and media attention, barber shops as money-laundering fronts has entered the national conversation, and officials at all levels have it on their radar.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is substantial evidence linking the recent boom in UK barbershops to potential money laundering and other criminal activities. The trend is quantifiable – with barber shop numbers surging far beyond normal demand – and has been met with mounting suspicion due to telltale red flags like cash-only trade, low customer footfall, and clusters of new shops in struggling areas. Investigative reporting and parliamentary inquiries throughout 2023-2025 brought these concerns to light, and law enforcement has now responded with concrete action. The nationwide raids of Operation Machinize in 2025 provided hard proof that many seemingly innocuous barbers and similar businesses were indeed harbouring illicit finance, contraband, and exploitation. Dozens of arrests, seizures of dirty cash and goods, and the liberation of trafficking victims from barber shops have validated long-standing suspicions. Furthermore, multiple court convictions (from London to the Midlands) have shown that some barbershops were actively used to launder drug money, facilitate illegal immigration, or even fund terrorism.

It is important to stress that most barbershops are legitimate small businesses and an asset to their communities. The intent of law enforcement is to root out the minority that are criminal fronts, in order to protect both consumers and honest barbers. As the NCA put it, the presence of crime-linked front shops “gives the perception from the local community that criminals have the run of the High Street” – something authorities are keen to reverse. The revelations around barbershops form part of a larger crackdown on the “hidden economy” and money laundering in cash-heavy sectors. They also intersect with efforts against modern slavery and organized immigration crime, since those abuses often go hand-in-hand with these fronts.

The UK’s experience with an overabundance of barbershops offers a case study in how criminal economies adapt to and exploit legitimate markets. By flooding high streets with certain types of businesses, gangs tried to blend in and launder profits from narcotics, people smuggling and other rackets. Now, through coordinated enforcement and greater awareness, the UK is piercing that façade. Ongoing investigations, stronger inter-agency collaboration, and potential regulatory changes are being deployed to ensure that a £10 haircut isn’t a cover for a far more dangerous trade. The issue will likely remain under close watch, but the combined evidence from journalists, academics, and law enforcement to date makes one thing clear: the recent spike in barbershops has not been driven solely by fashion or grooming needs – in part, it has been driven by the darker motive of laundering dirty money.

Sources: High-level summary of statistics, law enforcement reports, and expert commentary on UK barbershops and money laundering. Relevant sources include National Crime Agency statements, BBC News investigations (Ed Thomas, BBC News, April 2025), parliamentary records (Hansard, April 2025), and investigative journalism from The Independent, The Telegraph, and Evening Standard, among others. These sources document the growth of barbershops, the suspicions raised, and the official actions taken in response, as detailed above.

Afghanistan – history runs backwards (British Museum)

Afghanistan is history in reverse. As a country its culture seems to have been obliterated by war and religion. Fundamentalist Islam places little or no value on events before Year zero, when Mohammed was born. The 6^th C Buddhas of Bamiyan were blown to bits in 2001 and the contents of the Kabul Museum smashed and stolen. Sites have been looted and little money, care or scholarship has been possible.

It’s fate was to be a crossroads country, always in the way of someone else’s path to glory. Alexander the Great was the first to sweep through and much is made of the Greek city of Ai Khanun, but what has been excavated here shows a minor Greek outpost a year’s march from Greece. It had its theatre, statues, gymnasium, temples and stoas. They spoke Greek, worshipped Greek Gods, and built Greek architecture. Vines were plentiful and appear as motifs on everyday objects. The other influence was India from the South, with its ivories, lascivious, melon-breasted women carved on chairs, playing music, dancing. All a far cry in time and culture from the Taliban or Islamic norms of today.

But isolation meant obliteration. The indigenous culture was nomadic, and the women buried in tombs festooned with gold showed vestiges of Greek and Indian culture, but little in the way of real art, beyond beaten gold.

This is an idiosyncratic little exhibition that picks on a few bits and pieces from Afghanistan’s long history, but isn’t wide enough to say much, other than the usual Silk Road references and outside influences. Indirectly, however, it shows a history that may have regressed rather than progressed, with regression/progression still in the balance today. The most telling object was a book in the now compulsory ‘enter through the gift shop’ experience. It was a volume called ‘War Rugs’ and showed carpets with helicopter, jets, drones, AK47s etc. in beautiful motifs, woven by hand in those rich colours you only find on oriental carpets. Now that would have made a great and more relevant show.

Cables from Kabul by Sherard Cowper-Coles

SCC has been presented as an intelligent dissenter, a man in touch with the reality of Afghanistan. In fact he comes across as a man obsessed with his own little diplomatic world. It’s a world of groupthink in which the Foreign Office and Military protect their own little worlds, at the expense of the nation, and worse, the lives of young men. He has little contact or feel from the lads dying on the ground.

Groupthink 1 - Military intelligence (self-contradictory)

The bottom line is that after ten years, billions spent, thousands of coalition deaths and many more Afghan army and civilian deaths we have failed. Civilian deaths in particular have negated most of the effort. We failed because the truth has been constantly denied, primarily by a military machine that wants to fight and sees this as a means of survival and budgetary protection, especially in the UK, where the old-school tie and educational contacts remain the most powerful method of lobbying.

Military intelligence (sic) is provided by people with an interest in expanding their sphere of influence, fighting wars, mixed with loyalty to the military itself. It results in an insidious groupthink and optimism. We are told that badly written papers from the MOD, full of acronyms and dense prose, repeatedly avoid costings and that when such costings are promised they never appear. Use them or lose them, Sherard” says a senior MOD bod. What on earth do they think they’re doing?

Even on the ground, the rotation of entire brigades on a six monthly basis reduces continuity and effectiveness, as does the generous holidays and rotation of embassy staff. New Brigadiers do what they’re trained to do – launch a new offensive and get some action. In the lack of a clear political strategy, the military are making it worse not better.

At least the British were sensitive to some local needs patrolling with care, not destroying crops, as opposed to the gung-ho Marines blasting their way across the land driven by loyalty to Corps, not country. SCC saw them as practising a form of military colonialism, a role they were ill-equipped to deliver (in this he shows his fondness for British colonialism, which we could presumably deliver).

Groupthink 2 – Old-school

SCC wrote the book in a fit of pique, as he had been denied the job he had been promised by his boss, who took the job himself. So much for integrity in the Foreign Office! He constantly drops his little references, “my old prep-school friend…been in Pony club with my brothers…Labradors and prep-school lawns…our time together at Oxford…Oxford don.. Scottish Dowagers…my club in St James…once examined me for All Souls..official visit to public school in India (Why?)…been at the same Oxford College as me…farcical Prince of Wales visit…graduate of Balliol..” It reaches levels of absurdity when he invites his ‘old school friend’ to deliver an ‘Ain’t Half Hot Mum’ cabaret to squaddies, who were clearly unimpressed by a bunch of aging, public-schoolboy queens delivering daft ditties in Helmand, while their mates were being blow up. They found it ‘poncey’ – what a surprise Sherard.

Groupthink 3 –Foreign Office

The FCO (Foreign Office), of which he is a part, comes across as mired in protocol, obsessed with Royal and VIP visits (27% of all helicopter trips on VIPS!), old-school, public school, Oxbridge hubris. It’s an unreformed colonial office. Thanks god for the politicians. One of the odd aspects of the book is his admiration for Gordon Brown and David Miliband, who had a grasp of the detail, politics and a good relationship with President Karzai. Chris Mullin has already uncovered the absurdities of the Foreign Office in his wonderful memoirs but SCC does it by accident, betraying his ridiculously old-fashioned approach to foreign affairs. No wonder the Americans see the Brits as an out-of-date, toothless bunch of amateurs. The Foreign Office comes across as drawing its credibility from a colonial past, rather than creating the future.

Groupthink 4 –Afghan conference circus

The conference circus is an industry in itself, often in places clearly designed for delegate holidays, rather than practical travel and access. This is a world of policy and planning by Powerpoint. But there’s no sense of challenge to either method or message. His attitudes compare badly with the more honest Europeans who say things such as “What the fuck are we doing here?” SCC gives us a good account of this process but is also complicit in the crime. After a particularly optimistic military presentation by the MOD he says, “to have questioned it would have seemed ill-mannered” (p26). This is a world in which manners matter more than the lives of young men. Later still, on hearing the same old, over-optimistic plans, he “keeps most of his reservations to himself” (p144). Are we really paying him to keep quiet at such events?

Groupthink 5 - journos

Embedded journalism is also a problem, cleverly designed to skew realistic, investigative journalism towards a sympathetic view of the fighting men, who are being injured and killed. The sympathies of the journalists drift towards the soldiers and not the issues. No real sensitivity for the critics of the Afghan policy only a sycophantic approach to old hands like John Simpson, Max Hastings and Sandy Gall.

What to do?

I’ve used the work ‘groupthink’ because it’s so very obvious that the Foreign Office, editorial class and military leaders are all drawn from a narrow group of public schoolboys who all seem to know each other, but show little in the way of innovation objectivity.

The last two short chapters of the book are by far the best, as he gets down to some clear analysis. If only he had briefed the politicians so strongly when he had the job. All he was after in the end was a cushy job heading towards retirement. In a sense I was pleased that he was done over by his boss.

In its favour, the book gives real insights into Afghanistan, the current decade of war and its failures. His final attack on the British military establishment paints them as little more than buffoons, the Americans are playing a game they are ill-equipped to win and the political strategy is flawed. Strangely, he does not mention the corruption within Afghanistan (the word doesn’t even appear in the index). No mention of the massive Kabul bank fraud. Why these omissions? In the end this is a book that says much about what is wrong with our foreign policy in Afghanistan, but as an unintended by-product, says just as much about what is wrong with the people who are in charge.

Midnight in Siberia - heart of drunkeness

So what is Russia like after Gorbachev, then Yeltsin and now Putin? Midnight in Siberia gets off to an odd start, as the author arrives to work in Russia, as a journalist, not having learnt the Cyrillic alphabet. Even the word PECTOPAH bemused him. Bad start but he a curious guy and with the help of his companion/translator Sergei, takes the fabled Tran-Siberian train, stopping off to interview the people that live in the remotest part of the world. Remember that Russia is BIG - by far the biggest country in the world. Siberia alone is 1.5 times the size of the US.

On a steady stream of vodka, tea and flowers, he interviews an oddball selection of Russians. The alcohol consumption is outrageous, as bad as I remember, when strangers would simply send a full bottle of vodka to your table and expect one in return. This is a country where 60% of men smoke and each person consumes four gallons of pure alcohol a year with half the population classed as obese.

As he attempts to shatter the ice-cold, rude, unsmiling face of public Russia to reveal the warmer, private lives of people. Leaving behind the status-hungry, greedy managers of Moscow, who’d rather order the most expensive than the best wine, he’s soon in a friendlier but complex world that craves for stability. Most of the women he meets are divorced, but holding things together. Trust in the authorities (police, government and law) is hard to find and corruption rampant. People protect themselves by keeping their heads down.

His golden rule is to ‘never ask why’, which is, oddly, exactly what he does. The answers are often surprising as he encounters nostalgia for Soviet security, even Stalin. People crave stability, strong leaders and even when they travel, have a longing for the sort of suffering that seems an intrinsic part of their lives. The joy of the book, and it is a joy, is in the detail. The pagan beliefs that hang on with a mirror beside the front door and the refusal to shake your hand across a doorway, the personal tragedies, the weird stories and incomprehensible cruelties, the irrational attempts at order on an underlying chaos.

Since writing this book Russia has gone down a gear economically but the book suggests that Putin will weather this storm on the back of a people who, in practice, no longer trust or rely on politicians to solve their problems. In the end, however, what he finds and reveals is something I also encountered, a strange addiction to fatalism. I travelled twice to the Soviet Union, over three decades ago, from St Petersberg to Moscow, way down to Kiev, Bukkara, Dushanbe, Tashkent and Almata. It was both exhilarating and infuriating, and remains the strangest, most foreign, enigmatic place I’ve ever been. Thirty five years later, with a great many books about Russia under my belt, it remains as odd a place in my imagination as it’s ever been!

Grayson Perry – ramblings of a rip-off celeb

Listened to all four of Perry’s Reith Lectures and got angrier and angrier. His ramblings were derivative and rarely rose above the level of anecdote and memoir. Autobiography is not analysis. Personal musings would have been fine, as he can spin a tale and shape an anecdote. But to simply parrot a theory, which he stole from someone else, was unpleasant, especially when that person actually died during his lecture series, without Grayson even mentioning the fact. That was unforgivable.

Arthur Danto

Let me explain. Arthur Danto is one of the most significant figures in 20^th century philosophy of art, well known for his ‘Institutional’ theory of art which defines art as something decided by a circle of practice, namely curators, critics, collectors, dealers, gallery owners and so on. Grayson unashamedly downloaded and replayed the whole theory without acknowledging the originator. I wonder how he’d like it if one of his pots was copied down to the last detail, mass produced and sold on. I fully understand that the lectures were recorded before Danto's death, but the last two were broadcast after his death and some sort of acknowledgement should have been made.

Of course, he hadn’t really read his Danto or he would have presented a more sophisticated version of the theory, which is open to the obvious criticism that, if you say that art is simply the views expressed by a circle of experts, that simply begs the question of what they define as good art. It simply displaces the question, it doesn’t give any answers. In the end he was full of dead-ends, such as “Anything can be art but not everything is art” – as vacuous a statement as I’ve ever heard on the subject. Danto gave us a detailed analysis in books such as Beyond the Brillo Box, showing that art had freed itself from the tyranny of history and entered an era of pluralism.

Caught out

The fundamental problem is that Grayson’s a player in a game that many despise, an art world ruled by a small clique, driven by money and fame. The suspicion is that the art has become secondary to their objectives. Perry got nowhere near examining these criticisms, as he’s become part of the problem. His response to serious criticism is, no doubt, ‘call my agent’

A sign of his shallowness was him being caught out by the much smarter Will Self who challenged him on the technological reproducibility of art, something he pretended to accept, but rejected later in the series, contradicting himself. The only moment of revelation came in Lecture 3, when he discussed the fact that technology was often ahead of art and that art was slow in catching up. That was a theme worth exploring but no, off he went again with his personal musings.

Artist as R4 celeb

I like his work and admire the way he brought the underrated art of ceramics into modern art but he’s become that worst form of ‘celeb’ - the BBC and Radio 4 celeb. Sue Lawley did the usual fawning introductions and it didn’t surprise me that he opened his Reith lectures with a reference to The Archers. Oh how the BBC loves to create a National Treasure, especially a cross-dresser, it’s so transgressive dear! To be honest, I find the cross-dressing thing rather creepy, predictable and tediously narcissistic. As for the talks (I’m reluctant to call them lectures) he reminded me his namesake, Larry Grayson, playing for camp laughs.

PS

My local museum in Brighton, yes ‘museum’, has a Grayson Perry. It’s a beautiful object but it’s locked away in a cupboard. This is what happens when ‘curators’ are in charge of art. It becomes commoditised, curated and used as an object in a game that many dislike.

What's missing in Lowry? (Tate Modern)

You’ve got to love a man who holds the record for the most honours declined. Every single honour in the whole crooked system he rejected. My kind of man. It says a lot about Lowry, not a man of excess or self-aggrandisement, merely an obsessive painter. Beyond that Lowry is unfathomable. To walk round this exhibition is to be confounded by pictures that say a lot more than they at first present.

Absent interiors

There’s a wonderful little film clip half way round, of Lowry painting a dog. He does this at speed, just a few deft strokes with the tip of his brush, with absolute certainty and confidence. Says a lot that clip. Lowry’s world is not real life, it’s the stylised representation of a life that no longer exists - that of big smoky factories, chimney stacks belching black smoke, thousands flooding through the factory gates on foot, people out in the streets. Whatever the subject, school, football match, cricket match, market – there’s a mill in background and rows of houses. The mills need labour, labour needs houses and houses mean towns and cities. There’s no interiors, only life lived in the streets. Nor are there any paintings of the insides of factories and mills where the work took place. Industrial work is the deep driver behind almost all of these paintings, yet it is completely absent. There’s one picture of an excavation but this is outdoors building work, not the drudgery of the mill.

Absent vehicles

I grew up in an industrial landscape, of slag heaps, rows of red brick houses (the raws) and the tail end of factories, mines, steelworks. I remember smoke pouring out of chimneys and streets with so few cars that you could play football in them. However, one of the puzzling things about these pictures is the complete absence of cars and motorised vehicles. Like work and interiors, they are a deliberate absence. And when they are there, as the very occasional van or horse drawn cart, it’s for a reason. The Fever Van, for example, that harbinger of death, which took mainly young children away, usually to death from Tuberculosis.

Absent colours

His use of a limited palette, as shown in the show's poster, and an unusual preponderance of white, that rarest of colours in an industrial town, make the paintings seem ethereal. The extremely limited palette, essentially five colours, white, black, red, blue and yellow, focus you on form. It’s a stripped down world devoid of any sense of sunlight, warmth or fun. This is the harsh reality of the industrial landscape. However, it does bring the ‘landscape’ aspect of his paintings to life. As landscapes, they have beauty, as industrial, urban scenes they don’t.

Absent faces

You know a Lowry immediately you see one. Well, that’s what I thought but there’s a few paintings in this show that you’d struggle to identify as Lowrys. But the defining feature, apart from palette, is the figures. Largely faceless figures, dashed off the tip of the brush, often more than the scene would warrant in real life. They stand for something beyond just people, as they’re such a strong force in his paintings. For me it’s the absence of form that speaks the loudest. I don’t buy the interpretation that they are ‘delightful’ in their variety, real people beyond the stick-like representation. Unlike most painters, who rarely came from the industrial working class, he lived and worked among them, and saw what industrialisation had done, to what had been a largely poor and rural workforce. They were commoditised into crowds. Workers for machines. It is only here, outside of the factory, house and school that they are actually people, going somewhere, doing something, speaking to others, playing, watching sport but they’re show, not really as individuals but as part of a crowd. There’s no portraits, even interesting faces. And when there is, such as he Cripples, an awful painting - it’s hideous.

Conclusion

This is a sombre show, all about what’s lost in the human spirit when work strips people of their dignity, personality, individuality and time. Poverty is not fun, nor often beautiful – it’s raw and hard. That’s what it is and that’s how he paints it.

Elysium – hell on earth, heaven above

End of the 21^st century and we’ve creted hell on earth and heaven on a satellite in space (Elysium). Smart idea that chimes with current unequal times, and fears of over-population and immigration, of a future where the rich leave an overpopulated earth with no healthcare to create an Eden in space, although it looks suspiciously like an American middle-calls Eden , with perfect lawns, swimming pools and, curiously, tennis courts. It’s a clever view of a dystopian future that makes it accessible politically – Marxism in space.

Blomfeld saves the day by having some nice touches, the South African mercenaries and Spider, the ganglord hacker. I also liked Jodie Foster’s menace - in an oligarchy, you still have to watch out for other oligarchs. Matt Damon also does the business, although it’s becoming tiresome to see having a British accent and speaking French associated with being evil.

Other smart features are the robots, surveillance and drones. Inevitably, however, it turns into a gunfest. This is a shame, as the best sci-fi, Blade Runner and Aliens, used to be sparing with this guff. Hollywood struggles to make a movie without guns these days – it’s so damn infantile and predictable. District 9 was fresh because it broke the rules; this movie plays by the rules. It needed to be messier, with more surprises.

This is a cut above most sci-fi movies, and most recent Hollywood movies for that matter. It’s no classic but it’s not far off. This Director, Neill Blomkamp, has a talent, which if unfettered by Hollywood pressure, could turn up a real classic one day

Little Sparta

Set in a small wooded crack in the hills near Biggar, Ian Hamilton Findlay's temple precinct is built, as many in Greece were, around a natural spring, which cascades clear water down through a series of lakes and rivulets, around which art objects are carefully placed. They make you walk the half mile to the site as it prepares you for the sanctity of the site. There’s no denying the beauty of the place, especially the top-end lake but it troubled me a little. Then again, most things trouble me - a little.

Some of the works surprise, such as the golden head of Apollo. It springs into view, cleverly set into the ground in a little grove.









The cluster of gold roof slates was my favourite 'spot' - a deft,  relevant touch that works brilliantly in the grey Scottish light.
Then there's the grenades on the gate-posts and little bridges.

But the Latin inscriptions that litter the site become predictable. Setting words and phrases into stone and into the landscape is fine but if it’s Little Sparta, why Latin and not Greek? I like the Hyperborean Apollo feel to the place but the neo-classical words on stone are too easy and often banal.

Popped into Biggar’s only open Cafe for something to eat at around 4pm, “sorry, Kitchen’s closed – coffee and drinks only”. Some things never change.

Nirbhaya (Edinburgh International Fringe)

A ripost (inspired the wrong word) by the Delhi rape in December 2012, five women give their rea, personal stories of child abuse, rape, rape within marriage, chuild abduction and being burnt by kerosene. Almost unbearably sad, most of the audience were tearful. Just as shocking as the sexual incidents were their testimonies about what it is like to experience daily groping and harassment in Delhi, on buses, in the street. Dystopian Delhi seems like some circle of hell.This is a fine piece of political theatre, a welcome change from most happy-clappy Fringe performances. However, there are two problems with the piece.

First, it’s all testimony, powerful as that is – there’s no further causal insight. It’s all WHAT and no WHY. I was desperate to know WHY a city had become a place where women had become objects of sexual amusement. But here I had to fill in the blanks myself – overcrowding, poverty, dysfunctional police force, lax laws, caste, religion, dowry, forced marriage? This is often a problem in theatre as it does not often deal well with detail and a plurality of causes.

Second, the last (fifth) testimony was a harrowing account of a gang rape in Chicago. I can see that they wanted to universalise or internationalise the issue but in doing so they diluted the essence of the story – its Delhi context 'the rape capital of India'. 

Kafka: Report to the Academy (Edinburgh Fringe)

A naked man enters the room then transforms himself into an ape to deliver one of my favourite Kafka short stories. It’s written in the first person so works as a monologue and we, as audience, become the Academy. Adrin Neatrour gives is just fantastic with his ape calls, grunts, circling the stage, as he learns to become a man by aping others. Trapped in Africa, he’s caged but learns to smoke, drink, communicate and eventually delivers this ‘lecture’ to the Academy. It's the reverse of metamorphosis, where man becomes insect.

Kafka almost always escapes critical capture but in this is about our epistemological predicament. It’s about identity, memory, learning, forgetting. For me it’s about the process of crippling freedom through ‘schooling’ The child is captured, caged, learns to mimic, learns from teachers, theory, practice, lessons, but in fact loses the freedom he had as an animal-like child. What we think of as freedom of mind is simply the mimicking of others. He learns to ‘perform’ and becomes this ‘performance’. He simply reports. Wonderful piece of theatre, no frills, no artifice – just one man giving it his all. I was pleased to see that Adrin though the "idea was a wonderful send up of the terrible lectures I had to endure (at Sussex University)."