'Reflex' action against human traffickers

While the demand is there, human traffickers will exploit it

Reflex is a strategy set up by the government in 2000 to co-ordinate action on organised immigration crime.

It is not an agency itself but is an umbrella name for the strategy used to bring together intelligence from the National Crime Squad, National Criminal Intelligence Service, Customs and Excise, the Immigration Service and the various police forces.

The strategy "aims to identify and disrupt the criminal activity behind the multi-million pound international trade".

Migrants from China, Iraq, Afghanistan, Albania, the former Yugoslavia, and various African countries often pay the trafficking syndicates up to £20,000 to come to the UK.

Global profits of $12bn

It is estimated that the global profits from human trafficking are worth $12bn.

The Reflex strategy has also involved tackling the problem at source by working with countries like China to tackle the "snakeheads" who encourage people to make the long journey to the UK.

Organised immigration crime encompasses different levels of exploitation, from the Chinese man paying £20,000 to come to the UK to work illegally, to the Albanian women trafficked into prostitution.

David Blunkett

The Home Office says Reflex has made significant improvements to the intelligence picture and has improved the co-ordination of operational activity.

The strategy highlights the importance of building up intelligence on the traffickers' activities in key areas such as the Balkans, in order to disrupt and dismantle their activities.

One recent success was Operation Zephaniah, a joint Anglo-German initiative.

The National Crime Squad, National Criminal Intelligence Service, Customs and Excise, the Inland Revenue and the German Border Police combined to snare a Tyneside businessman who had made £6m from smuggling in illegal aliens.

Kashmir Singh Nanan, 36, from Birtley, near Gateshead, was exposed when an undercover police officer infiltrated his smuggling ring in December 2000.

Co-ordinated raids

His arrest followed a series of co-ordinated raids across Europe that ended in the discovery of 21 illegal immigrants crammed into the back of a lorry in Germany.

In October last year Nanan was jailed for six years.

Home Secretary David Blunkett said: "Organised immigration crime encompasses different levels of exploitation, from the Chinese man paying £20,000 to come to the UK to work illegally, to the Albanian women trafficked into prostitution."

'Sex slaver'

On Monday an Albanian described as a "sex slaver" was convicted at London's Southwark Crown Court after buying a 15-year-old Romanian girl and forcing her into prostitution.

The girl's tale illustrates the way the trafficking trade works.

She arrived in Macedonia from Romania and was then loaded into an inflatable boat, with many others, and smuggled across the Adriatic into Italy.

The girl spent some time working as a prostitute in Naples but was then bought for 4,000 Deutschmarks (£1,300) by Mustapha Kadiu, 32.

He smuggled her to London on false papers and then forced to work seven days a week often for up to 20 hours a day.

Kadiu was earning up to £500 a day from the girl, who remained penniless.

He will be sentenced next month.

Mr Blunkett said he was determined to crack down on human traffickers and he recently announced plans to introduce a maximum penalty of 14 years for the offence.