'Port is used as a back door for illegal migrants'

HOLYHEAD Port is being used as a backdoor route for illegal immigration, it is claimed.

- ANDREW FORGRAVE

So far this year, a total of 177 people have been refused entry and removed from the UK's second-busiest passenger ferry port.

The Home Office said people attempt to avoid checks by moving within the Common Travel Area (CTA), a zone that allows British and Irish citizens to travel between the UK, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands without a passport.

Individuals, sometimes backed by gangs, reattempt entry to the UK at places like Holyhead via Dublin after being turned back at airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick. Last week, three Romanians with previous immigration offences were returned after trying to enter through Holyhead Port, the BBC reports.

The same system is also being used to transport cigarettes and proceeds-of-crime cash via the Anglesey port. On one occasion, a UK Border Force sniffer dog found EUR13,000 (£11,340) of suspected criminal cash in a "purpose-built concealment" in a lorry searched at Holyhead. On another, more than £33,000 worth of non-duty-paid tobacco and cigarettes was discovered.