Immigration officers have arrested eight illegal workers after storming a warehouse.

Forty enforcement workers descended on a warehouse owned by courier company Yodel, in Ellis Road, Mitcham in the early hours of Friday, May 3.

The raid saw up to 100 workers rounded up and checked for immigration offences, with 10 originally arrested from a number of African nations, as well as five Brazilians.

The Home Office later released two Brazilians with European dual nationality, ordered four men who had overstayed their visas, or entered the UK illegally to report to the Home Office regularly, and detained a further four men.

These include a 39-year-old Zambian who had overstayed his visa, a 41-year-old Ghanaian who entered the country illegally, a 45-year-old Brazilian who overstayed his visa and a 36-year-old who overstayed his visa.

Their employer’s could face a potential fine of £10,000 for every illegal worker discovered employed at the site.

Jill Smith, head of south London Home Office Immigration Enforcement, said: “It’s about reassuring the public that we are doing all we can to tackle illegal immigration.

“We do these operations almost every day now, not always on this scale, but we send teams out to a range of shops, businesses and home addresses every day.

“We get a very good arrest rate on restaurants and shops and commercial premises and we do a lot of joint operations with the police.

“Illegal workers impact on the domestic job market, housing stock, public services and crime if they have been committing crimes as well.”

A spokesman from Yodel said: “We can confirm that on Friday May 3 the Home Office detained eight people employed by a third party providing services to Yodel at our Mitcham depot.

“All service partners are obliged by law and Yodel to ensure that staff have the right to work in the UK. We were presented with documentation that we now understand to have been counterfeit.

“We will continue to work with the Home Office to ascertain exactly what has happened however we can confirm that there has been no impact on service.”