TWO drivers were detained and their lorries impounded during an operation at South Mimms services. The exercise, which involved police and officers from the UK Border Agency (UKBA), targeted commericial

TWO drivers were detained and their lorries impounded during an operation at South Mimms services.

The exercise, which involved police and officers from the UK Border Agency (UKBA), targeted commericial vehicles that could be carrying illegal immigrants.

The lorry drivers were held until their employers paid fines totalling �5,198. The charges were outstanding from occasions when UKBA

officers had previously caught border jumpers in these company's lorries.

As well as seizing the two vehicles, officers also used special carbon dioxide probes to detect people breathing in the backs of HGVs.

However, no stowaways were found, a fact that UKBA said "showed the success of British controls in Northern France, as well as its increasingly high visibility presence across the UK's roads network".

Simon Excell, UKBA Director Midlands & East, said: "The message is getting out to would-be illegal migrants and organised smuggling gangs that we will catch them, we will detain them and we will deport them.

"Working shoulder-to-shoulder with the police, we are showing that there is no hiding place for those who try to cheat their way across the border.