Police took 11 Romanian children into custody in dawn raids Thursday as part of an operation targeting child traffickers, according to The Associated Press. Twenty-five Romanian nationals were arrested for a range of crimes in raids across Slough, west of London, Scotland Yard said in a statement. The operation included officers from Romania, police said. The swoop followed a surveillance operation that began in 2007 following a surge in petty thefts in the Westminster district of London, they said. Police tracked the rise to the use of young children by organized gangs, said Commander Steve Allen. He said poor families in Romania handed their children over to gangs who promised money in return. «While many of these crimes committed appear to be low-level, we have evidence that organized crime networks are exploiting and driving the most vulnerable members of their own community,» said Allen, the police commander of the Westminster district. The gangs coached the children, many under the age of 10, to snatch or pickpocket goods from commuters on London's subway system and on some of the city's busiest streets, police said. All the children were handed over to social services in Slough, who hope to reunite them with their families. Though the crimes had been committed in London, police conducted all their raids in Slough _ a nondescript suburban commuter town that has become a hub for eastern European migrants to Britain.
