Poilce and Home Office enforcers have arrested three individuals for immigration offences following a visit to a car wash in the village of Lymm, Chesire.
Cheshire Constabulary says one 26-year-old man was taken into custody for immigration offences by its Northern Protective Vulnerable People Team, with two other men, aged 26 and 28, bailed and issued with civil penalty notices.
Constable Dave Carr of the Foreign National Offenders Team said that “many vulnerable people come to the UK in pursuit of a better life”, but that such people can be “criminally exploited”. Officer Carr urged people to “come forward with any information or suspicions they have”.
Inspector Ian Nesbitt, of the Home Office’s North West Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) team, echoed constable Carr’s warning, saying that “rogue employers” can exploit vulnerable people and subject them to “squalid conditions”, adding: “illegal workers, and those who employ them, will be identified and will face the full force of the law.”
The arrests follow an announcement by the government at the end of 2024 that it would be stepping up raids on “employers who hire migrants illegally and exploit vulnerable people”, with a “particular focus” on “car washes, nail bars, supermarkets and construction sites suspected of hiring illegal workers.”
