Investigators have arrested the suspected leaders of an Albanian gang suspected of smuggling hundreds of illegal immigrants into the UK.
The main target, in jeans and a t-shirt, was arrested as he sat having a beer with three friends outside a chic tapas restaurant near Croydon town center in south London.
Two National Crime Agency agents rushed over and pinned the 40-year-old man against his chair before handcuffing him and putting him in a police van.
A man has been arrested in Purley in connection with an investigation into a human trafficking ring. Photo: ANC
The restaurant was ordered to close – and the dark silhouettes of a search team could later be spotted through the blinds looking for money and other evidence of money laundering.
A second suspect, 36, saw the front door of his cream-painted semi-detached house set back from Brighton’s main road in nearby Purley.
His gravel driveway was suddenly filled with NCA and Metropolitan Police vehicles, including a forensic van.
Shortly after their arrival, a woman arrived with a small child in a stroller. There was an air of thunder on his face.
“I live here,” she told officers. “What is happening?”
It is not known exactly what they told her, but they took her and the child inside the house before the suspect was taken away in handcuffs.
A 26-year-old woman was subsequently arrested at the same address.
Curious locals gathered at the gate, one commenting live on video on what looked like a neighborhood website.
Four other men, aged 26 to 44, were arrested in other raids in south London, Surrey and Oxfordshire.
The suspects are believed to have hired vans and trucks to smuggle hundreds of illegal immigrants – mostly Albanians – from France through the Channel Tunnel to the UK.
They reportedly ran a bespoke service, charging migrants up to £ 25,000 each, with links to France, Germany, the Netherlands and …
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-07-20 23:06:00
