Wiltshire Police target airfields in trafficking crackdown

There are 61 airfields in the county which fall under the Common Travel Area, with some allegedly used by organised criminal gangs. Wiltshire Police’s modern slavery and human trafficking initiative, Operation Aidant, will run from Thursday, November 23 to Sunday, December 3 and will aim to educate those in the industry. The force has no intelligence to suggest that there are criminal gangs using Wiltshire’s airfields but wants to educate legitimate users on what to look out for.

Detective Inspector Mark Kent said: “As a landlocked county Wiltshire has no ports which would enable criminals to exploit and smuggle modern slavery victims but we have many small airfields. “Our intelligence shows that there is little criminal activity at these airfields in our county – I can assure you it doesn’t appear to be a major issue here in Wiltshire. “However, we mustn’t be complacent and so are asking the public who use these airfields to keep a look out for anything out of the ordinary or unusual.

“This could be anything like a pilot acting suspiciously, an aircraft which has been modified or a concealed cargo being carried.

“We would like members of the aviation community to be vigilant and report to us anything that doesn’t seem right.”