It's a familiar scene throughout the capital. Stones are thrown from a desolate high street, a residential area with heels. There, fruit shops are building supply merchants and restaurants to promote huge photos of food. Often there are lawyers, funeral directors, carpet shops and odd cafes of various quality.
There are also endless barber shops, often with vacant customers. The ward of Westminster has one of the highest percentages of barber shops in the capital, followed by Kensington and Chelsea, followed by Camden in third place.
Five years ago, the scene looked quite different. According to local data companies, Barbershop is the fastest growing sector in the retail economy, with National Hair and Beauty Federation figures showing 304 barbershops opening nationwide in the first half of 2023.
“The amount of haircuts doesn't have enough haircuts at barbershops.”
London barber shop boom
Meanwhile, data from the Office for National Statistics shows that the number of beauty, barbershops and beauty spots in London has risen from 5,930 in 2015 to 8,915 in 2024.
“There are not enough haircuts for the amount of Barbershop (London),” former police criminal inquirer Mike Neville told London Standard. “You charge these guys £10-15 for a haircut, then they drive on a huge Mercedes.”
Neville is not the only person who has noticed that the spread of barbershops in the capital is suspicious. The issue has also attracted the attention of reform British MP Richard Tice. He accused the barbers of being a money laundering spot “for drug money,” and vowed to investigate the issue.
“A barber shop is like a candy store in the capital of America.”
“Barbershops are like American candy stores in the capital,” continues Neville. “They are obviously some kind of money laundering. They have no one there,” he adds: “I think barbershops are leading to money laundering and drug dealings. That's what drives this. Everyone knows it's bent.”
Earlier this month, the National Crime Agency (NCA) warned that there is a “real possibility” that more than £100 billion is washing up the UK or UK-registered corporate structures each year.
Cash-only businesses have long been a way for criminals to hide in obvious vision and nail salons have once been a major focus, but the stratospheric rise in the number of barbershops over the past few years has spread concerns among crime experts that they are using front-facing from cash-only businesses such as car washes and nail salons.
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Over the past three years, several major crime rings have been linked to barbershops in London. Hammersmith Barbertareknamouse, who owned the Boss Clue Barbers, was sentenced to 12 years in 2022 for sending £11,000 to fund terrorist activities in Syria. Gul Wali Jabarkhel was jailed for 10 years after providing thousands of pounds to truck drivers and illegally taking people to the UK across channels.
Elsewhere, Lewisham's CSG Barber was exposed to an illegal hideaway and DIY casino used by two Albanian brothers who run a huge amount of cocaine from London to the Midlands in March 2022.
For almost a year, “Eddie Line,” led by the Edmund brothers and Edward Hazari, ran drugs to Swadrinkote, Northwest Leicestershire and East Staffordshire. The brother was eventually jailed for 15 years, with the other eight people associated with the drug line.
But even with the tightening in some areas, Neville fears that “the police are just damaging the surface” of the crime at the capital barbershop.
Of course, most barbers are simply set up to serve the community. Still, Justin Carter, director of modern slavery charities, warns that invisible, the rapid rise in the number of barbershops means “there is an opportunity for people to be exploited.”
“When there's no way to change money, it makes it much easier to keep your business practices a secret.”
She said, “A lot of barbershops are heavily dependent on cash. If there's no way to change the way you make money, it's much easier to infiltrate business practices and therefore abuse and exploit people who work for you.”
She's not the only one who's worried. The NCA also warned that cash-intensive companies within the personal care, leisure and hospitality industries will be used by criminals to hide the origins of illegal cash. “There was an idea that Albanian and Kurdish gangs were involved in establishing the barbershop,” explains Carter. “Very often, they are a bit of a trick for other criminal acts.
“We've been focusing on (barbershops), and what we see is labor abuse, but there is a possibility that modern slavery could be.”
Carter, who led the development of the Modern Slavery Act in 2015, warned that employers were “cutting the corners” and allowed exploitation to creep up.
illegal worker at a barber shop in London
The standard-based investigation has found six barber shops across London that have been fined thousands of pounds since 2021 for illegal workers.
Last year, Leo Barber Shop of Camden High Street received an illegal labor notice issued to an employer who hired an individual without a legal right to work in the UK and was fined £20,000. In a similar case, MK Barbers, on Kingsland Road, Dalston, was fined £10,000. The barber has also faced major fines in Walthamstow, Islington, Hayes and Bromley.
Other cases were also found by a hairdresser. And it's not just cheap high street barbers at risk. Daniel Galvin Jr., a celebrity stylist whose clients include Princess Beatrice, Amanda Holden and Holly Balance, was fined £15,000 in 2023 for illegally hiring workers at a Belgravure flagship store.
“These kinds of people gave bad names to barbers.”
As a result, the reputation of honest business owners has been seriously damaged, causing great dissatisfaction among legitimate barbers throughout the capital. Famous court cases and headlines regarding barber criminals have annoyed many people in London and are concerned that their dealings are being given bad names by those who are “tried it.” Salih Kara, a barber at Shoreditch, has been tired of the bad apples of the barber world for 15 years. “These kinds of people are about washing their money, doing bad things, selling drugs.”
He's not the only one. Richard Marshall began making tea at the Barbour Shop at the age of 12 and cleaning the floors. He currently runs through Paul Mall Barbers, which has eight shops in the capital, including one of the oldest barber shops in the world at Trafalgar Square.
The veteran barber pointed out that historically barbers are some of the happiest experts in the UK, adding that 60% of the industry are nervous. “This is a home for a diverse group of people,” he explains. “I might not become an accountant or I might be able to make some other money.”
“I think people just focus on the negative.”
He adds: “I was a barber of an adult life for 37 years. When I first started, I only had one or two. In London, when I worked at Mayfair, there was no barber shops at all.
“As an opportunity, people have seen barbers see as a great business. There's so much positive around it, but I think people just focus on the negative.”
Barbers in the capital often provide services that go far beyond combs and scissors, providing hand-to-hand mental health training to help clients comfort and sign professional help.
Others are trained to receive clients' blood pressure as part of their primary motivation to prevent strokes and heart attacks.
A mentor at Re-Stele Barber Academy in Haringey, which trained over 500 men and teenagers, has even spoken about guns, shootings and tricks, and even talks about how students come to escape gang violence.
Sadly, trust in the profession is eroded by doubts surrounding extraordinary spread. In 2023, the barber was named the fastest growing sector in the retail and leisure industry by local data companies, with over 2,300 people opening that year.
Around London, there are four barbers in 10,000 Londoners. One particularly dense area has 17 barbers on a stretch high road for 2 miles. A similarly sized section of Kingsland Road between Stoke Newington and Huggerton is around 25.
For one, explained by the CEO of Caroline Larissey of the National Hair and Beauty Federation, barbershop's success could be successful in the industry's rapid ability to adapt and seduce customers. Still, “When talking to hairdressers, they really struggle. There's a lot more overhead. The minimum wage is rising,” explains Larissey.
“There's a lot of things that's become very challenging for small businesses, but the barbers seem to be pulling it apart.” This could be an indication of foul play.
“There's always this black economy in this sector, which is always under the radar.”
“There's always been this black economy in this sector, which is always under the radar,” she adds. “Unfortunately, it's just a mechanism for uncruel people.”
Larissey emphasizes that you don't need a qualification to become a barber or hairdresser, and you don't even need a license to access the cutthroat razor. This opens up the profession for potential exploitation.
In East London's lively Hoxton Pocket, Ozan Figani has seen a steady increase in the number of barbershops since opening his door 26 years ago.
The barber trained two years a week at Wood Green College, and decided to first pick up the clipper, raising concerns about the quality of the barbers in the capital. He studied four months of hairdressing theory when he first started, and after eight months of learning, he was allowed to test scissors with real hair.
But now Figani said the same qualification will be handed over within three months. “I used to go for two years,” he says. “Now they go for a few hours and they say, 'You're a barber.' ”
But how can you know which barbers are legal? Larissey explains Telltail's indication that something might not look right at the barber shop includes a customer paying in cash or insisting on bank transfers.
“A facility offering truly low-cost haircuts can be a red flag.”
If the barbershop looks “glittering and new,” then if the barbers are always sitting, that could be a suspicious sign, Larizzy adds.
Detective Director Charlotte Tucker of Wiltshire Police, a national expert on the rise of barbershops, has previously warned of similar narrative signs.
“A facility offering very low-cost haircuts can be a red flag, indicating that it is run by a crime gang,” she recently explained. “Everyone loves bargains, but if that's too good, that's probably the case.”