The Metropolitan Police has announced that 28 children have been taken into police protection and seven adults have been arrested in the largest phase of “Operation Golf” – a joint investigation by the Romanian and British Police with a large child trafficking operation which was being run including in the Romanian village of Ţăndărei.
This is a shocking and depraved crime, where gang masters have enslaved whole families of Roma children and then forced them to beg or steal on the streets of London to bring them enormous profit. The good news is that this gang is now being broken up and many of its leaders are under arrest and facing criminal charges thanks to joint efforts of Romanian and British police.
“Operation Golf” is a UK-Romanian Joint Investigation Team (JIT). This is a special mechanism devised by the European Union which allows police forces from different EU countries to work together quickly and efficiently without the need for lots of separate requests for mutual assistance and other legal bureaucracy. The EU pays some of the costs of the investigation too. So this is an EU tool which enables Romania and the UK to fight crime together and to ensure that the very small minority who abuse the right of freedom of movement within the EU for criminal ends can be caught and prosecuted, while the rights of their victims – in this case young children – are protected.
I don’t know why the investigation has been titled “Operation Golf” – but in the JIT Romania and the UK have found the right club in their golf bag to combat the trafficking of children in Europe.