Living in rusty shipping containers and earning £2.30 an hour: An unassuming business on a street where things are not as they seem

At the end of an unassuming street in Oldham, illegal migrants were living in makeshift shipping containers and earning just £2.33 an hour at a vehicle salvage yard, the Manchester Evening News can reveal.

Home Office officials made an unexpected visit and raided the yard on Thursday morning (July 25) after receiving intelligence that a number of individuals, who were working in the UK illegally, were also living in grubby and rusty freight containers on site.

Immigration officers swiftly uncovered a number of sleeping cabins at the premises, fit with beds and small bathrooms, as well as the shipping containers which had been turned into a kitchen and a recreation room.

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It was revealed that a number of the foreign workers, who were from the likes of Malaysia, Lithuania and Belarus, were not only living on site, but also working between 50 and 60 gruelling hours a week.

They were promised accommodation and three meals a day. But once those costs had been deducted, it was suspected the illegal workers were only each earning around £500 a month - the equivalent of approximately £2.33 per hour.

The catalyst for the investigation came after two passengers from Malaysia landed at Manchester Airport on May 19. They told Border Force officials they were entering the U.K to 'conduct business at the scrapyard', but were turned away and denied entry.

As part of the multi-agency probe, Environmental Health officers soon after discovered eight individuals living in the containers on site. They admitted to working and residing at the premises.

The details of the workers, who arrived in the UK between April and