People Traffickers Declare U.K. a Soft Touch

From The Daily Express:

CRIMINALS are convinced that Britain’s border controls are “soft” and that police are tolerant of the vice trade, according to a Home Office report that was kept secret for three years.

A series of interviews with convicted sex traffickers and people smugglers in British jails revealed that they were lured here by the “healthy profits” to be made from cross-border crime.

The foreign inmates boasted that sneaking illegal immigrants and sex-slave prostitutes into Britain was ­“relatively easy” and carried a “low risk of detection”.

The research, carried out in 2006, was finally released yesterday in a report entitled: Organised immigration crime – a post-conviction survey.

Its publication provoked a massive row, as critics claimed the disturbing findings had been suppressed.

Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green questioned why the report had “only been made public today”.

He said: “It is a sad fact that people engaged in the dreadful crime of human trafficking do find our borders relatively easy to cross.

“This is one of the reasons a Conservative government would introduce a ­specialist Border Police Force, so that around the world criminals would know that we were toughening up Britain’s borders.”

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the population think tank Migrationwatch, said: “This report lifts the lid on how our border controls are perceived by those who they are meant to deter.”

Home Office researchers interviewed 45 prisoners in British jails, all convicted of people smuggling or trafficking offences during 2005. The report said: “The picture ­present­ed by the perp­etrators was of a market that conferred healthy profits with a low risk of detection.

Traffickers said the UK was regarded as having a “liberal” policy towards migrants and asylum seekers. They said potential profits from trafficking into the UK were “considerable” and outweighed the risks.

However, some did express “genuine surprise” at the length of sentences handed out by courts, said the report.

The Home Office said the fact that those interviewed were in prison was proof that criminals were being caught.