Nail salons used as a front for modern slavery

High street nail bars across the UK are
being used to hide child slaves and launder drug money, say
police

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The salons – particularly Vietnamese nail bars – are using their
cash-only structure to launder money from cannabis farms and
prostitution. According to the National Crime Agency (NCA),
they are moving child slaves between branches in order to
avoid detection. 

The nail bars are also linked to illegal immigration, the NCA
says. The agency is currently carrying out 500 investigations into
modern slavery. Albanians, Vietnamese and British nationals are the
most common potential victims, the Daily Mail says.

According to Adam Thompson of the NCA’s modern slavery and human
trafficking unit: “Nail bars are one of the most prevalent areas
where we see Vietnamese victims, usually quite young adult males,
around 18 or 19.

“The gangs… recruit them from Vietnam. People will be told,
‘Come to the UK you will get a really good job, you will be paid
lots of money which you can send back to your family.’

“They will then typically use the services of an organised
immigration gang… up through China then Russia and into Europe
and then into the UK – usually clandestine in the back of a
lorry. Then they will be linked up with the gangs in the UK
who will put them to work in a network of nail bars.”

The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) – the body
that monitors modern slavery in the UK – reports that instances of
shops forcing people to work for free to pay back
extortionate debts have increased by 35% since last
year.

Police recorded 2,255 cases of modern slavery in the last year
but estimate there are “tens of thousands” of further offences that
go undetected, the Huffington Post reports.

“The barbaric nature of modern slavery means it destroys the
lives of its victims, which is why we introduced the world-leading
Modern Slavery Act 2015 and increased the GLAA funding by £2.6
million a year to tackle modern slavery and wider labour
exploitation,” Victoria Atkins, minister for crime, safeguarding
and vulnerability, said in early May.