At 10

At 10.30am, five-and-a-half hours after police officers entered the property, one of the key suspects was taken from the Bexleyheath house into a police van. The man, who emerged with a fleece over his head, was then driven away for questioning.. At one of the houses raided today, a semi-detached house in Bexleyheath, south east London, forensic officers conducted a fingertip search on a dark blue Mercedes saloon car. Roberta Marquez makes an irrepressible pupil, bouncing back like a ball when pushed. He said: “Our commitment is to take out such networks and this operation is the latest in our collaboration with the growing number of law enforcement agencies in Europe to work robustly to achieve this mission.” Eight men were held on suspicion of facilitating human smuggling – four in Enfield, one in Hackney, one in Bexleyheath, one in Hammersmith, all in London, and one in Boston, Lincolnshire. Two women were arrested on suspicion of interfering with the inquiry – one in Hackney and one in Bexleyheath.

A total of six people were arrested on suspicion of immigration offences. Another man was held in Bexleyheath on suspicion of money-laundering offences.Two people were arrested on suspicion of theft. At one of the houses in Bexleyheath, a specialist police dog was used to assist the search of the property. Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, head of the Specialist Crime Directorate, said: “We have today dismantled a huge organised criminal network of human smuggling. “We have been working on this operation for two years and we have worked with agencies across Europe.

It is a massive operation.” Mr Ghaffur said today’s raids were aimed at those “right at the top of this network”. He said the racket targeted mainly Turkish Kurds who hoped to come to Britain for a better life. “Once here, some of these people get into low-paid jobs, others are clearly left to their own devices to find work,” he said. Law enforcement officials in France, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Denmark, and Europol, have all contributed to the investigation.