"They don't keep money, they spend it here and now."
Det Ch Insp Paul Curtis is showing us around an evidence room piled high with designer shoes and handbags. Thousands of items are neatly stacked in plastic containers on wooden shelves.
The items here have been seized from financial fraudsters, some of whom send scam texts - known as smishing - to victims.
"They like to live a lavish lifestyle," says Curtis. "We have got somewhere between 8,500 and 10,000 items of evidence in this one room," he says, something that is "the result of house searches and raids" carried out by officers.
The smell of fresh leather goods pervades the air. Brightly coloured Gucci stilettos catch the eye from a distance; it's a treasure trove of top-label kit worth tens of thousands of pounds.
