Three men have been arrested in a series of dawn raids across Birmingham and the West Midlands following an investigation into organized crime groups embedded in High Street businesses.
Immigration officers detained two Iranian nationals, aged 32 and 28, at multiple addresses early on Tuesday morning.
A third man, a 43-year-old naturalized British citizen, was also arrested.
The Home Office said all three are being held on suspicion of facilitating illegal entry to the UK and facilitating illegal working.
Gangsters ‘call for ceasefire’ after deadly Christmas Eve pub shooting
It follows an investigation earlier this month that linked more than 100 mini-marts, car washes, and barber shops — stretching from Dundee to South Devon — to an organized crime network.
Andy Radcliffe, Assistant Director of Immigration Enforcement, said an investigation was "immediately launched" after the BBC report, involving HMRC, the National Crime Agency, Companies House, police forces, and Trading Standards.
He said teams had built "an intelligence picture in the matter of a few weeks," adding this was "just the start" of efforts "to try and tackle the widespread abuse."
Mr. Radcliffe said: "We’re taking this very seriously...people could go to prison for this, we could take assets off them, so we’re taking it very seriously."
More than 100 businesses were believed to be linked to a Kurdish crime network enabling migrants to work illegally and sell counterfeit cigarettes.
Undercover footage also showed an asylum seeker — whose claim he said had been rejected — attempting to sell a mini-mart for £18,000 cash.
A man described as being at the center of an immigration crime group boasted that he had "customers in every city" and claimed he could make illegal working fines of up to £60,000 disappear.
The government has acknowledged that loose regulation of parts of the labor market is helping draw illegal entrants to the UK.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said such criminal networks "create an incentive for people to come here illegally."
Asked last week whether ministers had lost control of High Streets to Kurdish crime gangs, Ms. Mahmood said: "What your reporters were able to scrutinize and show is absolutely evidence of why our system is broken.
Four human skulls wrapped in tin foil found in package going from Mexico to US
"It’s why this government has been cracking down on illegal working."
In last week’s Budget, the chancellor set out new funding for 45 additional Trading Standards officers, while Rachel Reeves announced "additional enforcement activity on High Streets, focusing on illicit tobacco and vaping products," supported by 350 newly-recruited criminal investigators in the fraud investigation team.
Minister for Migration and Citizenship Mike Tapp praised the BBC’s work, saying the investigation "really it shows the value of the BBC".
He added: "We said we take it seriously and we have and we are.
"I hate what these, you know, hairdressers, nail bars, and dodgy vape shops are doing to, so many of our high streets, not just for the look and feel of them, but also for those genuine businesses that are being undercut.
"So it’s really important that we continue to work hard to combat this."
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
