Cops lose illegal immigrants

What do cops do when we
hand them van-load
of illegal immigrants?

By Mazher Mahmood 

TODAY we find police and the Home Office GUILTY of wasting the News of the World's time by LOSING a minibus-load of illegal immigrants we delivered to them.

After our six-week investigation—involving eight journalists and costing £10,000—eight men were arrested and quizzed last March—and then set FREE.

Now they have all vanished—apart from one, who cops hope will turn up at the police station.

We gave officials FULL DETAILS of all the men—including real names, addresses, dates of birth—plus secretly videoed CONFESSIONS about their illicit entries into the UK.

Last night a Home Office investigator said of the cock-up: "It's all a bit embarrassing. They were let out on bail—and legged it! It was clearly the wrong decision. We have little chance of catching them."

Our investigation centred on an illegals racket run from a Sikh temple in Walsall, West Mids. Randhir Singh, a priest at the Nanaksar temple, and another man helped to bring in illegals by claiming they were Sikh holy men.

They claimed the men's services were needed in Britain and they charged them £400 each for sponsorship letters.

Pay

Singh, who was later arrested and released, asked one of our undercover reporters, who he thought had a London building firm, to find work for illegals.

"They don't have papers so can't work legally," he said. "You only have to pay them a fraction of what you would pay English labourers. Can you give them jobs? God will bless you."

Our man agreed to help and picked up seven illegals in a minibus.

But we had tipped off the authorities about the men, plus others at the temple who were quizzed. Then amazingly, after officials stopped the minibus to make their swoop, our investigator was even roped into driving the illegals to the immigration service's Solihull HQ.

Police and immigration officers boarded the bus too.

But once the men had been grilled, they were freed—and went to ground.Four other suspects identified by us fled before cops could quiz them.

Last night Home Secretary Charles Clarke said: "The problem the News of the Worldhas identified is an example of the issues that our five-year strategy on asylum and immigration will address.

"I will obviously now pursue these particular cases."

Yesterday a spokesman for the Home Office said our work had now led to a man being charged over smuggling illegal immigrants, while another was expected to be charged shortly.

But the man facing charges has also been BAILED. Let's just hope he'll reappear.