More immigrants head to Britain after EU extend Schengen border zone, warn German police

German police fear thousands of illegal immigrants together with victims of people-trafficking gangs have swept into Western Europe since the end of border controls with eastern states last month.

They said that since passport controls were ended on December 21, 620 illegal immigrants have been caught by police patrols in the area of Germany's border with Poland and the Czech Republic, as the border-free Schengen Zone was extended to East European countries.

But they say the figures is almost certainly a mere fraction of the number who have made it across the frontier successfully.

By comparison, in the whole of the first six months of last year, only 480 illegal migrants were caught.

Lars Wendland of the GdP German police trade union in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder on the border with Poland said: "Whatever number we have caught, you can be sure that ten times that number have successfully crossed the border in this period."

German police had earlier warned of chaos and a flood of illegal immigrants when the Schengen Zone was expanded to include former communist states in Eastern Europe last month.

The Schengen Zone now allows for borderless travel between 24 countries in Europe and in December took in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta. But the UK and Ireland are not part of the zone.

German police had called for the Schengen expansion to be delayed and had even marched in protest in eastern parts of Germany, warning of rising crime in the country as a by-product of the abolition of border controls.

Locals in towns on the border began buying up expensive alarm equipment and some even weapons to defend themselves against an expected crimewave.

Konrad Freiberg, chairman of the GdP union, said: "Our fears have come true."

German police say that the migrants are slipping across the new eastern borders of the Schengen Zone, such as in eastern Poland, many of them from Chechnya or even countries further east such as Vietnam and India.

In the new Schengen member states such as Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, security has been beefed up in eastern border areas but even arrested migrants are taken to refugee and asylum centres where local authorities admit they cannot hold them against their will.

Many refugees simply get on buses, trains or even take taxis to get further into Western Europe without facing any more border checks.

Some countries, such as Germany and Austria, have set up special patrols that carry out spot checks and trains have been heavily monitored in the last few weeks.

But privately police say that thousands of illegal migrants are using the lack of checks once inside the Schengen Zone to travel easily and freely to the furthest parts of Western Europe.

The GdP has already complained of problems with an EU-wide police database and co-operation between Schengen countries' police forces.