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'Immigrant gangs pushing up crime rate'
By Mark Wilkinson, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 30.05.03A judge has fuelled the controversy over the asylum crisis by speaking out about the impact of illegal immigrants on the crime rate.
Judge Keith Simpson suggested asylum seekers coming to the UK and getting involved in crime had become "all too frequent" and had made things more difficult for honest and genuine seekers of asylum.
He made his comments as he jailed three Romanian women for their involvement in a burglary scam, which netted them thousands of pounds in stolen property and money.
Recommending that they should be deported after their sentences are completed, he said: "Unfortunately this type of activity has become all too frequent since people have come from your country seeking asylum."
Maidstone Crown Court was told that the women were part of a gang who travelled around Kent and other parts of the country committing crimes.
In most cases, a team of up to eight men and women entered a shop, usually with a female shop assistant working alone, and distracted her by walking around and inquiring about prices, while others slipped into another part of the premises to steal.
In one incident, a shopkeeperin Margate was robbed of £3,300 in cash and £7,000 worth of jewellery, plus 20,000 Indian rupees. And in Leicester, the gang walked off with £500 from a private room at the rear of an off-licence.
Lucretta Velcu, 52, who has nine children, and Alina Ciucur, 22, both from Slough, were each jailed for three years, while Rosalihda Chiciu, 23, formerly from Hayes, Middlesex, and now of no fixed address, was jailed for 30 months. They had admitted conspiracy to burgle.
Some of the other Romanians involved in the conspiracy had gone back to their home country, some had been deported and others had simply-disappeared, the court was told.
The judge's comments follow a warning earlier this month from a leading policeman that asylum seekers had brought a wave of organised crime to Britain.
Chris Fox, head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "Mass immigration has brought with it a whole new range and a whole new type of crime. This ranges from the Nigerian fraudster to the Eastern European, who deals in drugs and prostitution, to the Jamaican, concentrating on drug-dealing.
"Gangs see a chance to earn money by getting people into countries without going through all the checks nations require.
"This mass movement brings the opportunity for criminals to move in."
Last week Tony Blair proclaimed that ministers had "turned the corner" over asylum, after applications fell by one-third in the first three months of this year, with figures for February and March hitting a four-year low.
A total of 16,000 people claimed asylum in the first quarter of the year, compared with 23,300 in the last quarter of 2002.
The 32 per cent fall has provoked a furious political row, with the Conservative suggesting that the figures had been manipulated.
