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Costume Scammers

Sun, 31 May 2026 22:03:30 GMT

Costumed scammers on Westminster Bridge

In a nutshell, it is illegal, they are also scammimg tourists by saying they can take a photograph for free and with the regards to the lady in red, she charges £20, is quite persistent and she takes contactless payment on her mobile phone which is of concern as organised crime groups are often involved and the tourists details may be obtained and used in identity fraud.

Young children are also physically grabbed without the parent's consent and sometimes have to be pryed away from the costumed characters. Adults are also grabbed and held on to while their partner's are encouraged to take a photo. will

The rose sellers are very persistent, once a customer has held the rose, the customer will often be harassed until payment is made.

There is a short recent video of the costumed scammers published by a content creator, which we will include in a reaction video, the content creator has not blurred the children's faces so the video will need to edited.

The local authorities of Lambeth and Westminster are responsible for the lllegal trading aspect and the police for any criminal matters such as fraud.. There may also be immigration offences along with benefit fraud for those claiming benefits.

What we do

When our volunteers are on the Bridge we will challenge them and use various techniques which result in them leaving.

We will pass on information and photos to the relevant local authorities such as Lambeth and Westminster Councils.

We also hand out leaflets to visitors and tourists to help prevent them being scammed.

Crime Prevention Advice Leaflets

Sun, 24 May 2026 20:04:59 GMT

Crime prevention leaflets prepared by volunteers

Westminster Bridge - Street Safe London Research

Mon, 04 May 2026 16:58:11 GMT

Enquiries and Interim Measures by Street Safe london

The first thing we did was make some enquiries and found that the Metropolitan police had conducted a multi agency operation in relation to the illegal gambling in 2015 known as Operation Westminster Bridge.

This does seem to be a common theme where apathy has crept in with little appreciation of the bigger picture or for our tourists and vistors.

Further enquiries would be required with boots on the ground to see what was going on which would result in various developments and liaison with the Metropolitan police including writing to the Commissioner of Police Sir Mark Rowley.

We undertook plain clothes and uniformed patrols including maintaining surveillance and disrupting an 8 person illegal gambling team before they were able to scam their first customer.

Our plain clothes volunteers disrupting illegal gambling team, calm heads, no violence, photos of all team players.

Our approach to disrupting the cup and ball scammers is markedly different from the vigilante content creators. We haveas part of our role reported several crimes to the Metropolitan police concerning the vigilante content creators.

Although the same police force, Lambeth police officers who deal with the half of the bridge on the South Side appear to be more proactive.

The following video has been edited to reduce the viewing time and includes violent disorder incidents by the vigilante content creators.

We will always do something rather than nothing when necessary as highlighted in the following post to protect users of the Bridge.

We are conducting further enquiries including submitting Freedom of Information Act Requests for statistics from recorded incidents / crimes on Westminster Bridge and will publish those as and when they are responded to.

Research is continuing and we will also publish anything else of interest that we find out.

Helping to reduce incidents of violence by vigilante content creators on Westminster Bridge

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 23:38:25 GMT

Vigilante Content creator continues to ignore police advice.

During the research phase of this project it became apparent that there were vigilante content creators who were themselves committing crimes including unlawfully spraying people with a red dye known as farbgel.

We raised concerns with senior management at Charing cross police station regarding these matters and also what are commonly known as "auditors" who had also been causing problems on Westminster Bridge, elsewhere in Central London with businesses, the public and the police.

Several months ago we received an email from Police Sergeant Sue Thompson from Charing Cross Police Station following those concerns being raised with Superintendent Natasha Evans.

Sergeant Sue Thompson said:

"The behaviour described, including approaching individuals and spraying them with paint, is not lawful and cannot be justified, irrespective of any belief that those individuals may be involved in criminal activity. The Metropolitan Police Service does not support or condone vigilante behaviour, and such actions have the potential to escalate risk, undermine public confidence, and negatively impact community safety."

"I can confirm that I have met with Galdino this evening and discussed the behaviours you have highlighted. During that meeting, his conduct was addressed directly, and he was instructed to stop using red dye and to cease engaging in behaviour of this nature. It was made clear that such actions are not lawful, are not acceptable, and have the potential to escalate risk and cause harm."

Unfortunately the vigilante ignored the Police Sergeant and continued his campaign.

Our take on the problem is that he should have been arrested and dealt with in the same way as any other member of public committing crimes.

This failure apperats to have resulted in further crimes being committed having emboldened the vigilante . This has also encouraged copycat crimes which have been published on social media.

The level of violence has increased with other content creators travelling to London who joined forces with Mr Galdino

The group also included Tyler Oliveira who travelled from the United States and two bodyguards from Manchester.

In April 2026 the group were involved in further incidents in Central London including an incident on Westminster Bridge led by Mr Galdino who had a can of red Farbgel spray in each hand.

They then committed further attacks in London including a serious attack where one of the bodyguards severely beat a female.

These attacks apart from the assualt matters are considered Violent Disorder where there is a maximum sentence of 5 years imprsionment if the suspects are convicted.

Our volunteers will continue to report any such incidents that take place on Westminster Bridge which come to their attention and ncourage the police to take action to help protect our tourists and visitors to london.

Following the incident, volunteers attended the Bridge to provide reassurance and act as a deterrant to any further incidents or disorder taking place on the Bridge.

On 8 May 2026 Mr Galdino was seen on the Bridge and continues to defy the police and produced a can of the Red Farbgel Spray . We contacted 999 to have him arrested including for the two violent disorder incidents which have been widely published on social media by Mr Galdino and Mr Oliveira who had filmed themselves committing crimes.

The police were unable to attend for an hour, so Mr Galdino was let go and the police updated. the delay in the attendance of the police may be a factor in the public not reporting incidents.

The 2 CAD reference numbers are 5865/08May2026 and CAD 6358//08May2026

If you are a witness or have any further information concerning these or similar incidents, please contact us so that we can pass on the information and keep an eye on what is happening with your information.

Video of the escalation of attacks on Westminster Bridge and Central London.

Following the previous attacks, on 8 May 2026 Mr Galdino attends Westminster Bridge and Brazingly displays his can of Farbgel Red spray.

The content creators actions are not crime prevention, it is harassment and assault for entertainment where a lot of money can be made.

We don't condone vigilantism, when it goes wrong people get seriously injured or lose their lives.

When incidents such as these take place, one or more of the following crimes have usually been committed.

Please report any such incidents so that the police can keep accurate records and take any necessary action.

Our approach to dealing with the cup and ball scammers

(Risk assessed, surveillance, intelligence gathered, calm heads, no violence, bridge clear for the rest of the day while our uniformed volunteers take over and patrol engaging with tourists. Short 20 second video below.

Citizens arrest

In the UK we have a very strong citizen's power of arrest which some other cities in europe do not have.

We are also able to use force to detain a suspect and hand them over to the police.

With several male content creators including two bodyguards, if there was a suspicion of an indictable offence being committed, the group could have arrested (detained) the suspects in accordance with Section 24A of the Police and Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and handed them over to the police.

The content creators simply detaining the couple would not have created as much entertainment, especially as having viewed various videos of this incident, the suspects do not appear to have attempted to pickpocket. They were pointed out by Mr Galdino, followed, hounded, sprayed and seriously assaulted.

In this case as in many of the videos we have seen, whilst the suspects may or may not be pickpockets or shoplifters, they have not committed any offences at the time. The content creator picks on the easy targets, foreign women who have difficulty in speaking English and for various reasons be unable or unwilling to report an attack.

One of the content creators Tyler Oliveira came over from the States. At the beginning of the video you will see Mr Oliveira ask questions about the legality of the Red Farbgel spray.

Mr Oliveira in his videos has used diclaimers with regards to the use of the Red Farbgel spray, unfortunately he has got it wrong due to a lack of knowledge of UK law. Importantly in the UK it is well known that Ignorance of the Law is no excuse.

It is not known what action was taken by the police in relation to the attacks in London, although clearly a matter which is in the publc interest, we have not seen any appeal for witnesess and are not aware of any arrests having been made.

As Mr Oliveira has returned to the States it would be reasonable to expect that the Metropolitan police would circulate Mr Oliveira as wanted on the Police National Computer (PNC) and be arrested if he returned to the UK to be interviewed the attacks and his conduct in the violent disorder.

Usually this would happen at the airport on a suspect's return to the UK.

The offence of violent disorder carries a sentence of 5 years which makes it an indicatable offence.

We wrote to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, to date there has been no response.

Westminster Bridge - illegal street trading - scammers - illegal gambling and pickpockets

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 23:38:25 GMT

OUTLINE OF THE PROBLEMS FOR USERS OF WESTMINSTER BRIDGE

Westminster Bridge is currently seen as resource and money maker for Content creators such as Youtubers who operate under the guise of a varirty of descriptions ranging from auditors to pickpocket activists.

For content creators it is akin to being a child in a sweet factory, there is so much to choose ranging from illegal trading to scammers such as the illegal gambling teams with cups and balls.

These issues have been going on for decades and a good place to start is with an article by Jim Waterson from London Centric who is credited for an excellent piece of investigative journalism.

When London Centric visited Westminster Bridge on a recent afternoon, a woman in a suit, rushing towards parliament, was overhead shouting into her phone as she squeezed passed a TikTok influencer dancing on a pedestal in front of a circling ring light.

“I just made the mistake of going across Westminster Bridge,” she explained into her mobile.

She had just walked past five illegal gambling operations spread out along both sides of the bridge, all featuring the age-old scammers’ act of the cup-and-ball trick, also known as the shell game.

It’s a fairly simple set-up: A man, often wearing shades and fake designer clothing, crouches over three cups and hides a ball under one of them. The cups are shuffled on a mat, while the man’s accomplices form a circle around him and place dummy bets on which contains the ball. Tourists, lured in by the sight of wadges of cash flying back and forth, watch the simple game play out, then try to gamble for themselves. The hapless tourist follows the correct cup only for the man to remove the ball at the last minute with a sleight of hand, revealing an empty cup. The ball then heads into a jacket pocket along with the tourist’s money and the hunt for a new victim continues.

I approached each of the gambling groups in turn requesting to see their gambling licenses. The response followed a typical pattern: Annoyance at being filmed, then an attempt to block the recording, before the exchange concluded with the gambling groups packing-up their kit and making a hasty escape on foot. Some dashed into the busy road to avoid my questions. Others rolled their eyes and expressed exasperation at the temporary disruption of their business. One of the illegal gambling operators was so keen to avoid the London Centric camera he ran off with a tourist’s fifty euro note. After pleading by her, he came back and returned it.

It also seemed there was no honour among thieves. One illegal gambling operator in a puffer jacket repeatedly brushed off my requests to see his gambling licence before suggesting I should instead film other people carrying out the same scam on the bridge.

Jim Waterson speaks to the police about the situation

The man tasked with maintaining law and order on Westminster Bridge is Sergeant Darren Watson, who runs the Metropolitan Police’s Waterloo and South Bank community policing operation.

“I hear you want to talk about my bridge!” he said, with the enthusiasm of a man who readily admits he is facing a never-ending task with limited resources.

Watson has been responsible for policing a large chunk of Lambeth next to the Thames for the last two years. His team of just five officers deals with day-to-day issues involving the area’s residents, as well as looking after one of the world’s most iconic tourist viewpoints. During this time he claims to have made significant progress on reducing the number of illegal operators on the bridge.

“Everyone looks at it and sees it as one problem, as opposed to a series of different problems,” he said. “The gamblers are very different to the street sellers, the peanut sellers, the hot dog sellers, the painting sellers.”

He said gangs like Westminster Bridge because it attracts tourists from areas of the world “that have a gambling culture”, such as India and east Asia: “What’s amazing is how many victims know it’s a scam but it’s a bit of an ego thing — they think they can outsmart the scammer and then they can’t. One was a police officer from the Middle East on holiday. He came up to me and said ‘I knew it was a scam but I thought I could beat it.’”

Watson said the vast majority of the illegal gambling operators on the bridge are Romanian nationals, although many of them have settled status in the UK. The problem of illegal gambling on the bridge has become so acute that Watson, a community policing sergeant in London, has established links with the Romanian authorities, who are happy to help track down the individuals scamming tourists and assisting with deportations: “They have been very good to us in identifying these people. It doesn’t look good for their country.”

During his time policing the bridge, Watson has become used to seeing the same faces again and again. He has also become a connoisseur of YouTube and TikTok videos of men carrying out the same gambling scams in tourist hotspots across Europe. To his surprise, he realised the groups — which he believes may have an organised crime element — shuffle their people across the continent: “If you watch some of the videos from Paris you will see the same people that you see in London. As soon as we start getting hold of them and arrest them they will move on. And they’re immediately replaced.”

One of the most pervasive features on Westminster Bridge is the illegal ice cream vans, which have been semi-permanently parked on the crossing for almost two decades. Their pitches, parked on a Transport for London red route (a version of double yellow lines where there are few justifications for stopping) are illegal. The operators themselves know they are illegal, because they are regularly prosecuted for parking there. The local council know they are illegal and do their best to enforce the law. But the economics make it all worthwhile. A queue of tourists paying vastly over the odds for an ice cream is worth more than the occasional court fine or impoundment of a vehicle.

Lack of enforcement

Amid the colourful world of rival ice cream sellers and Romanian gambling hoaxers, the lack of enforcement on Westminster Bridge seems to stem from a far more prosaic London problem: there is no single power with the responsibility to clean it up. Westminster Bridge is owned and maintained by Transport for London, ultimately under the control of mayor Sadiq Khan. The Metropolitan Police's Waterloo and South Bank neighbourhood policing team are responsible for policing it and stopping criminal offences on the bridge, setting priorities as they see fit with the resources they have. And the prosecution of illegal street trading is a matter for local authorities, which in this case requires the involvement of the licensing and trading standards teams from both Lambeth and Westminster councils — with the boundary between the two boroughs sitting in the middle of the Thames.

Another major problem is British planning laws, which make it very difficult to put CCTV cameras on the Grade II-listed bridge for aesthetic reasons. There is one camera at the Lambeth end, while some of the Westminster end is covered by cameras from the parliamentary estate. The end result is that brazenly illegal activity in the middle section can escape a lot of scrutiny.

Every so often the Sanli family, or another illegal trader, is targeted in a crackdown, in the hope that making an example of them will stop others. In 2012 Lambeth council publicly crushed an ice cream van , as well as obtaining an injunction against the Sanlis trading in the area. But each time they come back, with the lure of money outweighing the punishments available under the law.

Sergeant Watson said he tries to “think outside the box” to find new laws to charge them with. In July 2023 Elma Sanli, the ice cream van boss, was found guilty of trading without a licence on Westminster Bridge. She failed to turn up to court and was fined £1,845, while the court ordered the destruction of three card machines used by her. This January she was convicted at Bromley magistrates’ court of leaving a vehicle in a dangerous position on Westminster Bridge, receiving a fine of £220, costs of £110 and a victim surcharge of £88. Sometimes the police’s roads team will tow the ice cream vans away.

One Sanli employee told London Centric that the vans are driven into position then abandoned on Westminster Bridge without an insured driver inside the vehicle, making them harder to move and ensuring it is more difficult to put points on anyone’s driving licences.

Watson despaired at the lack of suitable punishment available through the legal system: “The money made selling ice creams to tourists far outweighs any penalties they get at court.”

Attention on the lawlessness and chaos on bridge ratcheted up this summer when Ned Donovan, an off-duty special constable, was violently assaulted while trying to stop a bag thief . The Met insists there’s been an uptick in police activity since then and there have been 17 arrests in the last five months for offences linked to Westminster Bridge, including a “significant increase in arrests for immigration offences”.

Watson said he had got to know many of the regular illegal traders by sight and they treated him with respect: “There’s that little bit of old-schoolness among those working on the bridge in the trading side of things. You’ve got a job to do, I’ve got a job to do, I don’t get any grief.”

He insisted that progress has been made and while he wished the councils could do more he knows they’re “as strapped for resources as the rest of us”.

Dr. Mahamed Hashi, Lambeth council cabinet member for safer communities, said his borough is working with Westminster on joint operations against illegal trading on the bridge, with a particular focus on the ice cream vans: “These unlicensed sellers take advantage of visitors, have none of the food hygiene certificates needed and obstruct cyclists on the bridge. We have taken actions including seizing illegally-operated ice cream vans on the bridge, and successfully prosecuted others involved in this trade.”

Transport for London has also been given new powers to crackdown on the rickshaws . But fundamentally it is matter of whether the authorities have the resources and desire to enforce the law.

Watson insisted his small team have made a big difference and reduced the amount of illegal behaviour on Westminster Bridge: “It’s a lot less than it was two years ago, from consistent and persistent enforcement. But if I put one of my cops on there then we don’t answer other things. I have five [police constables] on my team to cover the whole of Waterloo and the South Bank.”

In some ways, petty street crime and entrepreneurial lawlessness are as much a part of London’s historical traditions as the constant arrival of new visitors for criminals to target. The fact that this illegal behaviour still goes on in the shadow of parliament and New Scotland Yard only serves to underline the complexities of policing the capital – just as when the Met was formed almost 200 years ago.

As Watson puts it: “My challenge is trying to get people to understand the challenge we do face. It seems like a very simple problem to solve but it’s not.”

Nuisance auditors causing problems on Westminster Bridge and with retailers in Westminster.

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 23:38:25 GMT