The extraordinary number of foreign criminals hiding in Britain was dramatically revealed yesterday after police arrested more than 700 suspects travelling on our roads in just 48 hours.

As a row raged over a report which showed the £1billion-a-year failure of successive governments to guard Britain’s borders, police launched the biggest-ever blitz on overseas offenders, rounding up 1,687 suspects in two days.

Using number plate recognition technology to spot foreign-registered vehicles potentially associated with criminal activity, police stopped 2,304 cars, arresting 729 immigrants.

They include gangsters and thugs wanted in their own countries for crimes such as human trafficking, robbery, fraud, drug smuggling, assault and domestic abuse.
Raids across Britain in the past two days have netted more than 700 foreign criminals


One 28-year-old Czech fugitive wanted on a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) for 23 offences, including robbery, was spotted in Birmingham city centre.

The automatic number plate recognition cameras also identified a 51-year-old Polish man in Smethwick, West Midlands, who is suspected of a £11,500 fraud. The week-long crackdown – involving 43 forces in England and Wales – has seen raids carried out targeting foreign criminals across the UK.


Police also handed out 958 fines and cautions to overseas motorists for driving without a licence, insurance or tax and using rebated fuel, known as red diesel.

West Midlands Police, which is co-ordinating Operation Trivium, gathered intelligence from 14 countries on their most wanted offenders in Britain. A list of 3,500 number plates associated with crime was distributed to traffic officers, who were instructed to pull over any matching vehicles. Meanwhile, 30 police officers from 14 European countries ran checks on the drivers on their own databases at a Birmingham control centre.

A 24-year-old Polish man was arrested in Worcester just hours after an EAW was authorised for crimes including domestic abuse, assault and theft in his homeland.
Why is the cost of dealing with foreign criminals so high?
Suspected robbers, fraudsters and drug traffickers were all caught in the police raids

Suspected robbers, fraudsters and drug traffickers were all caught in the police raids

Police found another wanted man from Slovakia living in Handsworth, where he was running a human trafficking ring. In some cases, the offenders could be deported within ten days if they do not oppose extradition on an EAW.

Others arrested for crimes committed in the UK could face trial in Britain, where a judge will decide whether they should be deported at the end of their sentence.

Officers said the ‘show of strength’ had yielded an unprecedented number of arrests by turning Birmingham into ‘the headquarters for a European Union police force’.

The crackdown came as ministers refused to name dozens of high-risk foreign criminals on the run for more than five years.

A damning National Audit Office report has revealed that foreign offenders are able to walk into the country unchecked, commit new offences, then cheat removal on human rights grounds once their jail terms are complete.

It claimed that 58 ‘high harm’ offenders – a category including rapists, killers and drug dealers – absconded after being released from prison. One in six of the 4,200 foreign criminals freed from jail have fled, and police routinely fail to check if arrested foreign nationals have a criminal record at home.

The report prompted Paul Houston, whose daughter Amy was run over and killed by an illegal immigrant in 2003, to accuse politicians of having ‘blood on their hands’.

But yesterday David Cameron stressed that 22,000 foreign national offenders had been removed from Britain since he entered Downing Street, adding: ‘We’re making progress, the buck does stop with me but I wouldn’t mind a bit of cross-party support for the actions we need to take.’

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘These people are the subject of ongoing investigation and we are determined to hunt them down and remove them.’