Albanian gangs ‘using barber shops as fronts’

BARBER shops are one of the fastest growing trades on the high street – but officials fear they are increasingly being used as a front for organised crime. Security sources have told The Mail on Sunday that gangs are using some businesses to conceal the proceeds of crime, and many could be a base for human trafficking and slave labour. The explosion of barber shops in London and other major UK cities has prompted experts to call for an investigation. Some are being run by Albanian and Kurdish gangs suspected of making money by smuggling tens of thousands of migrants from Calais to Dover on lorries and small boats across the Channel. Former Metropolitan Police officer Ali Hassan Ali said: ‘A lot of these shops have thousands of pounds of equipment but no customers. ‘There is strong reason to believe a large number have links to organised crime.’