With increasing numbers of Chinese immigrants being smuggled into the UK, gangs are moving their criminal rackets into the countryside to supply cheap labour to farms and packhouses, according to a report in the Times today.
The market is saturated with low-paid workers for city restaurants, take-aways and the rag trade and the organised gangs are apparently looking for new options.
A National Crime Squad spokesman said that a number of rural police forces were examining the problem as part of a nation-wide investigation into human trafficking.
Police are aware that some Chinese people have approached farmers and packhouses directly, offering to undercut workers picking and packing fruit, flowers and vegetables.
Gangs have apparently brought protection rackets to the fields of East Anglia, threatening legal strawberry-pickers with violence unless they pay £40 a week.
Meanwhile, in a separate report in The Times, the government has admitted for the first time that hundreds of thousands of men and women could be working illegally in the country because of the widespread availability of forged documents.
The report identifies agriculture, construction, catering, hospitality and food processing as industries where illegal working is prevalent.
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