Traffickers and illegal immigrants arrested in Europe-wide day of action
28 June 2010
A day of action targeting Vietnamese organised immigration crime on Tuesday 22 June resulted in the arrest of 31 suspected traffickers and 66 illegal immigrants.
The majority of the arrests took place in Hungary, France and Germany with the UK being the destination of choice. Many of the victims would have been forced to work in cannabis factories in the UK to pay off the traffickers who arranged their travel.
Vietnamese migrants enter Hungary or other Eastern European countries illegally or on a short stay visa. From there they can easily travel to other Schengen group countries in Europe, which have no border controls between them, and reach the English Channel before being required to produce any documents.
Andy Baker, Deputy Director for SOCA and deputy Chair of the European Police group on Vietnamese Organised Immigration Crime, commented:
"This operation clearly demonstrates the significance of the threat posed by immigration crime and the strength of the resolve across our EU partners to tackle the issue. It is much better that we tackle this issue in the source and transit countries rather than wait until they reach and possibly breach our UK border. The damage caused by such trafficking is considerable. The facilitators expose the migrants to deplorable and often life threatening conditions, including sealing them in air-tight bags to try and avoid detection at UK borders.
"Many of the Vietnamese illegal immigrants in the UK are forced to work in cannabis factories to pay off the traffickers who bought them into the country, and so fuel the drug trade and create more harm in the UK."
Read more about the threat of Human Trafficking