There has been a rise in human trafficking over the past year despite the global lockdown, according to one top cop.
Detective Superintendent Fil Capaldi, the head of Police Scotland’s national human trafficking unit, said there had been a five per cent increase on this time last year, although the figures were still to be officially gathered and published.
DS Capaldi, who worked at Paisley CID for a number of years and also headed up the Public Protection Unit based at Renfrew Police Office, outlined the grim picture in an interview with 1919, Scotland’s justice and social affairs magazine.
He said 1919 Magazine: “If there’s any doubt, it happens here. It happens right here, right now, and it’s happening in communities all over Scotland and we know this. We know this categorically.
“For the calendar year 2020, we had 387, but then you’ve got to take into account that global lockdown, restrictions in global travel, restrictions in ports, and even freight coming in for clandestine entries.
“But year to date, we had a five per cent increase. And that’s taking into account there’s still loads of restrictions in global travel, lots of different countries obviously still using different lockdown procedures.
“So, it’s not an issue that’s going away. And I always say that whenever there’s money to be made, particularly by organised crime groups, they’ll diversify.”
It is feared that the upheaval in Afghanistan will inevitably lead to more cases of modern slavery in the UK.
There are things members of the public can watch for to help address the issue and assist police, Capaldi said.
That includes large groups of people sharing small properties, lots of comings and goings at unsocial hours, and people who don’t readily have access to documents like bank cards.
To read the full article, visit https://1919magazine.co.uk/september2021/
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