Trading standards investigate Barry High Street slimming tablet shop

The authority said it had already received a complaint about slimming product outlet Sculpts Extreme Limited which trades online and on High Street, Barry.

A BBC Wales investigation, shown on Monday depicted customers who said photographs of them “before” and “after” had been falsely used and that they had not used slimming tablets to achieve their weight loss.

A Vale council spokesman said: “The council’s trading standards team was already looking into Sculpts Extreme Limited prior to being contacted by the BBC X-Ray team last week, after having received a complaint from a member of the public.

"The programme has brought further evidence to light that will be of great help to this investigation.”

The BBC investigation claimed the company had "falsely advertised" products and made unfounded health claims.

Sculpts Extreme owner Lee Szuchnik told the BBC the photographs had been removed and the staff member responsible dismissed.

It had been claimed customers could lose between 4lbs and 8lbs a week on its slimming pills and the labels claimed the tablets could "liberate fat from fat cells".

Chairman of National Obesity Forum Wales, Prof Nadim Haboubi said this was "absolute rubbish".

Any such health claims must be authorised by the European Food Safety Authority by law and these were not.

Lee Szuchnik of Sculpts Extreme also told an undercover BBC researcher one of the ingredients, bitter orange peel, "peels the fats from the walls of your stomach" and "you don't have to go to the gym" to lose weight if using the product.

Professor Haboubi said the claim did not make scientific sense and "everybody has to exercise".

Mr Szuchnik said there were labelling errors on the pots which would be corrected.

He added he had a lot of happy customers and many of them had lost weight without exercising.

X-Ray can be viewed on the BBC catch-up service, iPlayer for two weeks.