Ice cream wars and illegal gambling: How Westminster Bridge became lawless
Plus: Have you visited the capital's least used railway station?
Welcome to London Centric, where it’s been a chilly week in more ways than one. We’ve been busy navigating some legal threats as part of a series of forthcoming articles that we hope to bring you very soon.
Today it’s an investigation into how Westminster Bridge became one of the most lawless places in London. Despite decades of work, the authorities seem unable to stop illegal gambling gangs and street traders from blocking the crossing and scamming tourists. This story required London Centric to develop sources deep within the capital’s ice cream van community, so please read on for the scoop. (Sorry.)
Next week we’ve got some truly shocking stories coming, all thanks to those of you who subscribe to the paid edition. This kind of reporting takes time and resources. If you want to support a new form of local journalism for the capital, please do consider signing up.
Scroll down for today’s big read on Westminster Bridge, or first enjoy some glimpses of life in the capital this week.
Oh, Gladys.
The repercussions continue from London Centric’s story about TfL’s secret “Project Gladys” work on a road pricing scheme. Sadiq Khan was asked about our story during an appearance on LBC’s James O’Brien show on Friday (do listen to the mayor’s response on our Instagram account), while Tory MP Peter Fortune asked transport secretary Louise Haigh about it in the House of Commons. We’d suggest you check out the original, nuanced piece here.
Preposterous London property of the week.
A fresh-on-the-market seven-bedroom property overlooking Regent’s Park, complete with its own driveway to hold eight cars, could be yours for just £20m. If you’re worried that it doesn’t offer enough space, don’t fear, there’s planning permission to expand the Grade 1-listed property with a mega extension.
No one departs, no one gets on.
The UK’s most used train stations were revealed on Thursday, and all of the top ten were in London. The incredible popularity of the Elizabeth line pushed Liverpool Street (94.5m passengers a year), Paddington, and Tottenham Court Road to the top of the list. From next year the contract to run the Elizabeth line, currently held by Hong Kong’s metro operator, will be transferred to a consortium including the Tokyo Metro system. Very little will change visibly as far as the public are concerned, although the new operators have promised to improve the line’s reliability.
The same data also shows London’s least-used stations in 2023/24.
5. Morden South (69,862 passengers a year): Too close to Morden’s Northern line station to be useful for most people.
4. Sudbury Hill Harrow (41,460): Too close to Sudbury’s Piccadilly line station to be useful for most people.
3. South Greenford: (38,330): A former winner of London’s least popular station, on a branch line in Ealing that doesn’t really go anywhere.
2. Drayton Green: (20,198): Another former winner of London’s least popular station, also on the same branch line in Ealing that doesn’t really go anywhere.
1. Sudbury and Harrow Road: (18,680): The newly-crowned least loved station in London, not to be confused with #4 on the list, has a peak-only service to Marylebone.
Do get in touch if you’ve ever actually visited any of these.
If you want to read the full piece below you’ll have to be a paid-up London Centric subscriber — non-subscribers can either subscribe now for 25% off for the first year or click here for a free seven day trial.
Bridge of lies: Is this the most lawless place in London?
It’s a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in Dickensian London: An overcrowded bridge across the Thames in the shadow of the great Palace of Westminster, where organised gangs run illegal gambling rackets on the pavements to scam naive out-of-towners. Bag thieves and pickpockets run among the crowds, robbing tourists within sight of MPs enjoying a drink on the terrace of parliament. Illegal street traders hawk hot nuts from stalls, while others sell dubious artworks. There are occasional acts of violence, plus the constant drone of music from unofficial buskers, tormenting the business people and workers in parliament or St Thomas’ hospital with the sound of bagpipes.
The scene is brought sharply up to date by the inclusion of garish rickshaws coated in furry material and flashing lights, blocking the roadway in the hope of fleecing visitors for hundreds of pounds. And ever-present are the illegally-parked ice cream vans, happily ignoring decades of criminal prosecutions in order to charge rip-off prices for a 99 Flake or a hot dog.
All this lawless behaviour on Westminster Bridge is easily within the gaze of anyone who stands on the front steps of New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the most powerful force in the land. And on the other side of the bridge sits the Houses of Parliament, the seat of the UK’s lawmakers. So what is going on? Why can’t anyone fix it? And what does it say about the capital’s governance that one of the most lawless places in London is a neighbour of both the people who make, and enforce, the rules?
“Look, there is the same thing over there.”
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.
“Look, there is the same thing over there,” he said, suggesting I aim my camera at one of his rivals.
“I knew it was a scam but I thought I could beat it.’”
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.”
“Why is it like this?”
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.
Trying to work out exactly who owns or runs these illegal ice cream vans isn’t easy. One I approached had no price list and no ownership details. When I started filming, the people running the van became upset and start shouting at me, then filmed me in return. When I attempted to order an ice cream, the woman refused to serve me and said I was picking on her. Instead, she pointed me to the amount of other illegal behaviour taking place on the bridge and suggested I instead report on the rickshaws, also illegally blocking the road while trying to charge tourists £65 per person for a short trip around Parliament Square.
Nearby, I talked to Sibo, a tourist from South Africa, who said she didn’t understand why any of this was allowed: “I used to live in London 15 years ago and I don’t remember as many people on the bridge itself. Why is it like this?”
She had just paid £10 for an ice cream and drink from the illegal ice cream van for her son. She agreed to let me check her credit card statement, which revealed a name. She had apparently bought her ice cream from a man called “Ali Sanli”.
“I hope you’re also writing about the Albanians.”
This began London Centric’s foray into the complex world of the London street ice cream trade. After several days of cold calling sources in the ice cream distribution world, a tip came good. One irate rival ice cream van operator said Ali is part of the wider Sanli family, a British family of Turkish origin, with a notorious reputation.
“You’re not supposed to stop an ice cream van for more than 15 minutes but they do… some councils are hot on it and some just aren’t,” the source said. “[The Sanlis] just don’t care. They’ll come to pitches that other people have paid for and steal their business. They’re not nice people. It’s ice cream wars, seriously.”
The Sanlis operate from a warehouse within a series of railway arches in Walworth, just a short drive from Westminster Bridge. Push open the metal fence and enter their compound and you’ll be struck by two things: Just how many ice cream vans you can fit in a small space — and just how much money someone is making from the operation. A white Range Rover and BMW, both with personalised plates, were parked up next to half-a-dozen ice cream vans. All around was the humming of refrigeration equipment.
Inside the depot was a woman who identified herself as Jan Sanli, one of the third generation of Sanli ice cream sellers. She said video of me filming her company’s van on Westminster Bridge had already been circulated by their staff: “I can see you on the recording, you do realise that right? And you do realise you’re on a CCTV camera right now, right?”
In a common theme among the illegal traders on Westminster Bridge, she soon began complaining that I was unfairly focussing on her family’s law-breaking when there were other criminals operating in the area.
“I hope you’re also writing about the Albanians,” she said.
One of the difficulties in understanding the Sanli business and who profits from the Westminster Bridge ice cream trade is the web of limited companies that have been established by the family. These businesses have names such as Bankside Catering, Central London Catering, and Supersoftice Catering, and tend to trade for around eighteen months before being struck off the official register.
Curiously, Ali Sanli, the man receiving the money from the Westminster Bridge ice cream van card machine is not listed on any of the legal paperwork relating to the business that operates on Westminster Bridge. Instead, many of the companies and the family home in Bermondsey are registered in the name of his wife, Elma. Other members of the business include their son Caner Sanli, who hit the headlines in 2012 after being brutally beaten up by a gang in Essex while selling ice creams on a rival’s turf.
Graham Barrow, an expert in British company law, told London Centric that it is a red flag when a series of businesses with related directors are founded, fail to file accounts, then collapse: “It’s indicative and similar in nature to those who seek to avoid paying any tax or being responsible for their debts. Once a company is off the register it ceases to have legal liability. You start a business, run up debts, fold it and start again. It enables the non-payment of any sort of VAT or tax that might be due.”
Jan Sanli dismissed the suggestion her family was avoiding taxes and asked me to leave the ice cream depot: “I pay more taxes than probably everyone who works at the paper you’re at. Have a lovely day.”
The Sanli family failed to respond to a series of follow-up questions from London Centric about their activities.
“Think outside the box.”
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.”
London Centric will be back next week with more exclusive stories. All feedback is appreciated. Let us know what you like or dislike by sending an email or click here to send a WhatsApp.
Another great piece, thanks! I wonder if there's an unexplored avenue for law enforcement (possibly needing a law change): the card machine companies will also be profiting from all these illegal sales. If they were liable for the illegal income in some way, it might make them a bit less lax about which dissolved and reconstituted companies they were happy to issue accounts to 🤔
Maybe one answer to the illegal ice cream vans is to have a *legal* ice cream van on the bridge, run by Westminster Council and charging less extortionate prices? Drive them out by market forces. And offer sightseers a reasonably priced cone.