- LONDON: British police say they have taken 28 Roma children into protection after raiding houses in London as part of a child-trafficking investigation.
The Metropolitan Police force says officers raided 16 properties in east London on Tuesday in an operation “to safeguard potential victims of a Romanian-based Roma gang of child traffickers.” The force says the children will be assessed by child protection experts. Seven adults were arrested.
The raids were part of Operation Golf, a joint British-Romanian police operation against people traffickers from Romania’s Roma, or Gypsy, community.
Chief Inspector Colin Carswell said “these children are exploited by gangs and in some cases their own parents,” who paid criminals to bring the youngsters to Britain to earn money.