Criminal gangs are exploiting the immigration system to bring new gang members into Britain through networks of bogus businesses

Scotland Yard has said that around half of London's organized crime gangs are "cultural networks" whose members share a foreign nationality - typically from countries such as Turkey, China and Vietnam whose citizens require visas to come to Britain. British Border Agency officers, operating in Calais, discovered two Vietnamese illegal immigrants sealed in airtight plastic bags by smugglers, in a bid to avoid detection by probes which measure carbon dioxide levels. In another recent case, officials at Dover found a 16-year-old Vietnamese girl hidden behind the dashboard of a car, surrounded by electrical wiring.