You face jail, immigration gangs warned: VIDEO

IMMIGRATION officials are pledging to take a hard line on anyone caught trying to flout the law on entry into the UK after a series of raids in Rotherham and Manchester.

Nine people were arrested in raids on 20 addresses in Rotherham, including one in Broom Grove, yesterday. Another person was arrested in Manchester as part of the same operation.

The UK Border Agency say the arrests smashed an international gang believed to have been trading in sham marriages by flying eastern European women to Pakistan to be married and then bringing them back the UK where they then applied for their new husbands to be able to join them.

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Those arrested on Wednesday morning included a Pakistani man and woman both aged 25, a Slovakian man aged 19, and seven Czech and Slovak women aged between 21 and 36.

Det Sgt Alisdair Duncan, of the Border Agency’s Immigration Crime Team, said: “We have arrested several suspects who we believe are part of an organised crime group and who have played a pivotal role in attempting to breach immigration law and in assisting others to do so.

“We believe we have cracked an organised conspiracy in which marriage fixers and European brides were making money from Pakistani grooms desperate to find a way to stay in the UK.

“Anyone trying to benefit illegally from the privileges of life in the UK faces prison and deportation.”

Watch our video for footage of the raids.