FAKE cosmetics worth thousands of pounds has been seized by a North Yorkshire-based crime team.

The National Trading Standards eCrime Team is run by North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council, and based in Knaresborough, intercepted two large shipments of illegal goods bound for the UK

Sophie Davies is one of the investigators with the City of York Council side of the team, and said two containers of goods - including make-up, nail glue, nail gels, eye shadows, lipsticks, and unsafe UV lamps - had been seized from China and the Far East.

She said: "These goods are not to be sold in the UK due to various pieces of registration on unlabelled goods being sold within this country. We know some of these goods are unsafe."

The seizure comes just weeks after it was announced the eCrime team was working with US technology giant Microsoft to help prevent its users falling for online scams which cost consumers £3.5 billion a year in the UK alone.

Earlier this year, the team made the first successful prosecution of a UK defendant involved in the Microsoft cold-calling computer scam - where residents were phoned by fraudsters claiming to be from the software company and talked into paying for services because their computers were at risk.

Mike Andrews, coordinator of the national eCrime team, said: "The eCrime Team will continue to crack down on companies that use the internet to scam consumers. The action we have taken in this case demonstrates that we will not allow potentially unsafe and dangerous products to be sold online. We are pleased that we have been able to prevent tens of thousands of these products from being sold on to unsuspecting consumers."

Mr Andrews said one man had been cautioned in connection with the imports.