Three hundred officers have carried out early morning raids linked to suspected exploitation of migrant workers. Nine people were arrested in Wisbech and March in Cambridgeshire and Kings Lynn in Norfolk. The operation is the biggest of its kind in the county and involved police, the National Crime Agency and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA). Eastern Europeans, mostly from Latvia and Lithuania, are employed to pick leeks across the region for UK supermarkets. The nine - seven men and two women - were arrested at about 3:30 BST in simultaneous raids. Among those in police custody is Latvian national Ivars Mezals, who is in his mid-20s and was arrested at a house in Wisbech. Legal gangmasters Roberto Mac Ltd and Slender Contracting Ltd had their licences suspended on Tuesday, with immediate effect. The raids were the culmination of months of investigations by police and the GLA into the exploitation of migrant workers in the Wisbech area. Victims are promised a better life in the UK with well-paid work but often end up in over-crowded accommodation and immediately placed in debt to a gangmaster who controls their affairs, he said. They are paid wages well below the legal minimum for extremely long hours and their pay is often taken to service debt on their accommodation. Police said before Tuesday that they had already identified 34 victims, 11 of whom were being given support and protection. Eight of the nine people arrested are being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud. They are: Three men, all aged 44 and from March A 26-year-old man from Wisbech Two 27-year-old men from Wisbech A 27-year-old woman from Wisbech A 36-year-old woman from Wisbech A 22-year-old woman from Wisbech was arrested on suspicion of possessing a section 5 firearm, namely a pepper spray, and was taken into custody at Kings Lynn.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 08:52:37 +0000
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