Channel migrants are being recruited from asylum hotels and children’s homes by organised crime gangs, police chiefs have warned.
The migrants were discovered as part of a major police operation to smash the organised crime groups behind Britain’s biggest counterfeit crime network run out of a district in central Manchester.
The 33 organised crime groups operating in the Cheetham Hill and Strangeways areas of Manchester are said by police to account for more than half the £8.6 billion a year trade in counterfeit goods in the UK, which has also been linked to people trafficking, money laundering and illicit drug dealing.
One Afghan migrant who reached the UK a year ago was found by police to be commuting 21 miles from a hotel in Warrington to earn £20 a day as a “spotter” for a counterfeit crime gang, to supplement the £59 a week benefits that he received from the state.
Two Afghan 13-year-olds, who arrived last year on small boats across the Channel, were found being paid the same daily rate to act as spotters for one of the gangs even though they were supposed to be in care in a neighbouring local authority. Spotters are expected to watch for police, tout for customers and deal drugs.
A further four illegal migrant workers and 80,000 fake vapes were seized in a raid at a wholesaler in the heart of the Cheetham Hill and Strangeways district known as “counterfeit alley” in Manchester.
Around 40,000 migrants are currently being housed in hotels, from which they are free to come and go, at a cost of almost £7 million a day.
This week, Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, is expected to announce plans to fast-track the deportation of Albanian Channel migrants, with some linked by the National Crime Agency (NCA) to Albanian crime gangs.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Stephen Watson, Greater Manchester’s chief constable, who launched Operation Vulcan to crackdown on the gangs, warned that illegal immigration was fuelling organised crime.
“We have to be clear that there are vulnerable people being rendered more vulnerable but there are also some pretty shady characters who are on the make in the UK and we need to root them out and boot them out,” said Mr Watson.
“The poor souls who are being exploited become cannon fodder to organised crime groups. They become a source of labour. They become a totally beholden, disempowered group of people who very quickly travel the spectrum from being victims and exploited through to exploiters, and people who create victims of others.
“The bottom line is, even if you have a set of circumstances that make more legitimate your claim for asylum in the UK, these people are being exploited to the point that they are hardly likely to develop into the sort of mature, decent, law-abiding sort of people who will integrate and contribute to our society.
“They are likely to become damaged people and hardened criminals and frankly, they will end up in a position where far from contributing, they will be a net burden on the state for the rest of their natural lives. There are so many reasons to sort this out.”
Detective superintendent Neil Blackwood, who is leading Operation Vulcan, said: “We are coming across people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria. They are travelling into this area to earn £10-£20 a day to stand on a street corner. They are spotters. They will stand outside the shop and get customers to come in. If police come, then they close the shutters or their role may be to deal drugs.”
A Home Office source said: “It’s clear that in some cases there are strong links between organised criminal gangs and illegal migrants. That’s why this government is working on options to break the people traffickers’ business model and ensure we stem the flow of small boats crossing the Channel.”
