ES Investigates: The sour truth of Oxford Street’s candy shop curse

It is Friday afternoon and Oxford Street is thronging with tourists walking down the world’s most famous shopping promenade as Londoners spill out of pubs.
Little did the tourists expect when they came here that so many of the stores would be weird American-style candy and souvenir shops. And little do they know that behind the gaudy exteriors, activities like the sale of illegal goods and money laundering are taking place. Authorities are finally cracking down on this criminality, as well as many millions in unpaid business rates, but how did the West End turn into the Wild West for all these cowboys?