BRITAIN: British police promised yesterday to track down the labour agents of 19 mainly Chinese migrants who drowned on a beach gathering shellfish. They said their investigation could become a global inquiry.
Detectives promised to do everything possible to find out who had sent the 19 low-wage workers to gather cockles in Morecambe Bay in north-west England, where they were drowned by the fast-rising tides on Thursday.
The deaths have focused attention on the world of gang labour, where so-called "gangmasters" farm out migrant labourers, often illegally, to do poorly-paid jobs in agriculture and unskilled industrial work like construction. Det Supt Mick Gradwell said computers, cell phones and other documents had been seized in house raids in the Merseyside area of north-west England on Saturday, and reiterated he expected arrests to be made within days.
"We are still piecing together lots of information and intelligence about the people who may be involved in this incident," he told reporters. "The investigation team are determined to find those people responsible for this tragedy."
The victims, 17 men and two women, were cut off in bitterly cold weather by rising tides in the treacherous flat bay where the water rushes in faster than a person can run. Police said some of them tore off their clothes to swim more easily, and held hands in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.