An investigation by the Express newspaper has uncovered a case that raises serious questions about Britain’s border controls. A violent criminal from Romania, wanted by justice in the country, was found living peacefully in a makeshift camp on Park Lane in central London. Iliuta Gruia fled from Romanian justice after threatening a family with children with an ax.
Tent camp on the most expensive street in London
Last summer, a group of Romanian migrants occupied a plot of land on Park Lane, one of the most expensive streets in London. They put up big tents, put mattresses, tables and chairs. Locals complained of loud parties with alcohol in the middle of the night and unsanitary conditions. The Express journalist visited the camp and saw with his own eyes how it worked: men who woke up in the morning, checked their phones, ate breakfast, then changed into rags, took their placards and went to beg in the busiest areas of London. Passers-by gave them money in good faith, not knowing that there was an organized group behind the scenes.
Who is Iliuță Gruia?
During visits to the camp, the journalist noticed a man who frequently became aggressive. He shouted, swore, and during a drive by Tory MP Chris Philp, then shadow Home Secretary, followed the MP through the camp, pointed an imaginary gun at the camera and accused him of “racism”. With the help of Romanian journalist Matei Rosca, the Express reporter managed to identify him: Iliuță Gruia, a violent criminal from Botoşani.
Fled from Romania after threatening a family with children with an ax
What the journalists discovered about Gruia is hard to believe. Not only that he had several active convictions and had served prison terms several times for aggravated robbery. At the time he was yelling at the Express reporter on Park Lane, Gruia had just fled Romania after failing to appear at a court date in Botoșani. At that time, the court issued a restraining order against him because he had taken an ax and threatened to kill an entire family, including the children. Gruia had already left. He had found it in the most expensive postal code in London, a place where the hand of the law in Romania could no longer reach him.
The police visited him to see if he was okay. No one checked his record
The fact that a man who represented a danger was able to enter the UK unhindered is quite serious. But what followed is even harder to accept. During his stay at Park Lane, Gruia was visited by the police to make sure he was fine and coping in the summer heat. Labor councilor Liza Begum, responsible for housing in Westminster, said social care teams were “always present in the camp” and worked “very closely” with people there, but that “many have complex needs and do not accept the services on offer”. No one has checked whether these “people with complex needs” are wanted criminals.
The Mayor and City Council treated it as a homeless issue
When the camp appeared on Park Lane, London mayor Sadiq Khan and Westminster council classified it as a migration and homelessness issue. No one investigated further. But if he had talked to the locals, as the Express journalist did, he would have learned that the members of the group changed every two or three months, that among them appeared elderly people or minors without knowledge of English, and then they disappeared. They are classic signs of human trafficking and modern slavery that the authorities have overlooked.
The case of Tăndăra: the lesson that London forgot
Coordinated organized begging from Eastern Europe is not a new phenomenon in London. In 2011, the case of Șăndăra showed the extent and what can be hidden behind such groups: a network in the south of Romania, destroyed by the British police, which trafficked children on a large scale and made them beg on the streets of the capital. Investigators estimated the network’s leaders earned £160,000 a year for each child. During searches in Romania, Kalashnikov machine guns, hunting rifles, pistols and knives were found. It’s been 15 years, but the signs are the same. Three Romanian experts in combating human trafficking, quoted by Express, were categorical: Great Britain’s refusal to recognize what is happening before its eyes means, in fact, complicity in modern slavery.
The failure of the authorities to check who is in these camps does not just put the British public at risk. It also endangers the vulnerable people within these groups, the very ones on whose behalf the rulers say they are acting. And that, writes Express, should scare us all.
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