Immigration officers and police swoop on city centre nail bar

PERTH: Man seized at South Street shop in raid which lasted three hours – the third in two years

A man was seized by police and immigration officers during a threehour raid on a Perth city centre nail bar.

A group of officers from the force and the Home Office rushed into Nail Icon on South Street at 11am.

Minutes later, a second group of police officers and a Perth and Kinross Council employee entered the premises.

At 2pm, after three hours of intense activity on the main route through the centre, two immigration enforcement officers placed a man from the site into the back of a van.

The shop was closed and it is unclear when it will reopen.

Staff at Nail Icon refused to comment on the matter, only stating the officers were “there to check”.

It is the third time the shop has been raided in the last two years.

On November 17 2016, two people were arrested as part of a border police swoop.

In September of the same year, three men were detained in a similar raid.

All five people were of Vietnamese origin.

The previous searches came as part of a crackdown on suspected human trafficking.

After the raids, the windows of the shop were covered with decorations so passers-by could not see inside.

On each occasion, the shop reopened the next day.

One witness from a nearby store said: “I was serving a customer when all of a sudden vans pulled up on to the pavement and immigration officers and police piled into the shop.

“They were there for some time. “I would say there were at least a dozen officers there between the Home Office and uniformed and plain clothed police.

“It is a pretty busy shop. Whenever I pass there are always people in and a girl I work with has heard it has a good reputation.

“It’s been raided before and on one occasion there was even more officers than this.”

In recent years, nail bars have become targets for immigration enforcement teams because of their historical links with human traffickers in countries such as Vietnam.

Around 100 raids have been carried out by police and immigration officers in Scotland alone in the past five years.

The Home Office refused to comment.

“I was serving a customer when all of a sudden vans pulled up on to the pavement and immigration officers and police piled into the shop. WITNESS

The raid on the nail bar in Perth by police and Home Office staff lasted three hours.