Three suspected illegal immigrants were arrested after officers swooped on a Birmingham restaurant.
According to media reports, the trio were discovered hiding in store rooms of the Oodles ‘n’ Oodles restaurant at Star City and arrested.
All three were Pakistani nationals in their 20s.
The raid was part of a series of swoops from the Home Office Immigration Enforcement teams across the country.
The Birmingham Mail joined more than a dozen officers, who also visited the Big Fish chip shop on Coventry Road, Small Heath, where three staff members were all cleared as legal workers. Officers visited the Star City noodle bar in Nechells, where 12 staffers were questioned and three were taken into custody.
Briefing officers ahead of two raids in Birmingham, Ian Ashenden, area director for the Immigration Enforcement Team, said, “This is the third day of action as part of Operation Compliance.
“It’s intelligence-led and aims to track down, arrest and ultimately remove people who are working here in the UK illegally.
“The discovery and seizure of documents is vital in this work, but we also use rapid identification checks, which are mobile fingerprint scanners that can bring up the details of people we are questioning if we have them on record.”
The three Birmingham men were joined by 59 others arrested in further raids in London, Durham, Manchester, Wales and Somerset.
Immigration Minister Mark Harper said, “Yesterday’s operations highlight the routine work we are carrying out every day to stamp out illegal working.
“We are sending a clear message to employers who choose to use illegal labour – we will find you and you will pay a heavy penalty.
“We will not allow the growth of a shadow economy for illegal migrants.”
The Immigration Bill, which will be introduced later this year, carries proposals to make life even tougher for unscrupulous businesses by beefing-up penalties for employing illegal workers.
