London's Oxford St. is overrun with American candy stores. Why?

Today this landmark is home to Candy World, one of more than two dozen shabby American-themed stores selling candy and trinkets whose recent mysterious explosion on one of London’s most popular shopping thoroughfares has confounded officials and property experts.

Their spread exemplifies the decay of Oxford Street.

Gutted by online retail, sky-high business taxes and pandemic lockdowns, it is today suspected of being a haven for criminality perpetrated in plain sight, with the local authority investigating some of the stores in connection with a range of offenses including tax avoidance and selling counterfeit chocolate, watches and vapes.

For 650 years, crowds swarmed Oxford Street to heckle convicts being carted from the prison at one end to the gallows at the other.

Mega brands like Debenhams and Topshop have gone, leaving 20% of the street empty, according to Stuart Machin, chief executive of beloved upmarket retailer Marks & Spencer, who wrote in the Telegraph newspaper in June that Oxford Street risked becoming a “dinosaur district destined for extinction.”.

Into that void have stepped the candy stores.

Westminster City Council, the local authority, is investigating around 30 in connection with alleged business tax avoidance totaling 7.9 million pounds ($9.5 million).

They are “far from regular and legitimate businesses,” with too few customers to cover rents, a June 13 council statement said.

The council has declined to name any of the two dozen-plus stores it’s looking into.

Actually collecting these taxes from the candy stores is difficult because some give “shell-company names that quickly dissolve,” the council said.

“As soon as we left the store I said to my daughter, ‘Somebody has just played us,’” said Eide, 43, a cement-factory manager from Kjøpsvik, Norway.

Lawi has moved its registered address three times in as many months, starting at a former Adidas store, where in 2021 it ran American Candy Land, and finally earlier this month to the northwest London suburb of Harrow.

Buying the Oxford Street building was a shrewd investment.

Glory Step Investments’ lawyers have not responded to a request for comment on whether it is aware of the allegations against Candy World, or whether it deals with the store directly.

Its leasing agent, global property giant Savills, has advised the Hong Kong firm “of the concerns” about the candy stores, Savills spokesperson Victoria Buchanan said in an email, adding that Savills is “seeking a long-term tenant.”.

However, both Savills and Montagu Evans, the building’s managing agent, said they don’t deal with Candy World itself.

For one, the stores always seem devoid of actual customers, and criminal enterprises “don’t tend to launder money right on a high street in public view,” he said.

The council has never publicly said it’s investigating the stores for money laundering.

The bars that flooded Oxford Street were instead wrapped in a label that’s sold online as party favors on Amazon and Etsy.

Two squares contained enough hazelnut to trigger a serious allergic reaction, but this was not on the labels, Barnsley Council said in a statement

“All the souvenir shops turned to candy,” said Roshk Farz, 25, assistant manager of American Candy Shop up the street

“Soon everyone will be back to selling souvenirs,” he said