Guardian’s Robert Booth reports that 77 Chinese children have been lost from the care home operated by Hillingdon Council near Heathrow Airport, feared being trafficked and exploited.

Organised criminal gangs have exploited a children’s home beside Heathrow airport for the systematic trafficking of Chinese children to work in prostitution and the drugs trade across Britain, a secret immigration document reveals.

The intelligence report from the Border and Immigration Agency, obtained by the Guardian, shows how a 59-bed local authority block has been used as a clearing house for a trade in children that stretches across four continents.

At least 77 Chinese children have gone missing since March 2006 from the home, operated by the London borough of Hillingdon.

Only four have been found. Two girls returned after a year of exploitation in brothels in the Midlands. One was pregnant while the other had been surgically fitted with a contraceptive device in her arm. Others are coerced with physical threats to work as street-sellers of counterfeit goods. It is thought that many work in cannabis farms.

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