Last November the home secretary, Theresa May, described the widespread scale of abuse as 'shocking' Crime cartels are in control of thousands of modern day slaves within Britain, a government regulator has claimed. There is thought to be more than 13,000 people in the UK who are being exploited as cheap foreign labour by organised criminal gangs. Last November the home secretary, Theresa May, described the widespread scale of abuse as 'shocking'. Paul Broadbent, chief executive of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, said that trafficking human beings for labour exploitation offered high profits while the risk of prosecution was fairly low. The authority is currently investigating 300 gang leaders suspected of trafficking foreign workers, although it's feared the number of could be much higher. Anyone found supplying illegal workers can be jailed for up to ten years and fined, while people employing from an unlicensed gang leader can be fined and jailed for a year. But Mr Broatbent critcised the sentences which had been handed out to those convicted of using modern day slaves. The report for the Centre of Social Justice found that law enforcement had left an 'open goal' for organised crime to build up around immigration. This had led to crime syndicates using fake universities, sham marriages, forged documents and a network of solicitors and accounts to illegally traffic people. Once in the UK, the victims, many of whom were from the European Union, were trapped in 'debt bondage'. The gangs would claims their victims owed them for their travel fee and documents and would force them to work by deducting money for food and accommodation. Mr Broadbent told The Times: 'Slavery was abolished 200 years ago but it's alive and thriving in the UK,' he added. 'People are being forced to work against their will. 'There are physical threats and intimidation as well as psychological abuse. It's systematic coercion and control.' The site where police found 13 workers housed in caravans, sheds and even a horse box belonging to James John and Josie Connors who were sentenced to a total of 15 years . The government's Modern Slavery Bill, launched by the home secretary last year and currently going through Parliament, aims to provide new powers to protect people who are trafficked and held against their will. 'The first step to eradicating the scourge of modern slavery is acknowledging and confronting its existence,' she told the Guardian at the time. 'The estimated scale of the problem in modern Britain is shocking and these new figures starkly reinforce the case for urgent action.' The modern slavery minister, Karen Bradley, told the BBC previously the issue was a hidden crime. 'It's going on in streets, in towns, in villages across Britain and we need to help people find the signs of it so we can find those victims and importantly then find the perpetrators.' Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said Labour would crackdown on modern day slavery to stop immigrants being exploited and local workers being undercut. Last year a Sheffield family were jailed for keeping a man with learning difficulties as a slave. Craig Kinsella, 34, was beaten and made to work 19-hour days for no money by a couple and their son. Ice cream man David Rooke subjected Mr Kinsella to repeated violent attacks during the six weeks last summer when he was beaten, starved and held captive in his garage. His wife Donna and son Jamie also took part on the campaign of abuse. The three were jailed for a total of 11 years. Police were alerted by a neighbour and when they searched the home they found Mr Kinsella emaciated and covered in bruises. The Rooke family were caught on their own CCTV camera attacking the man they kept enslaved in their garage. Married couple James John (left) , 34, and Josie Connors (right) 31, who are cousins, were convicted of controlling, exploiting and abusing the men for financial gain and were jailed for 11 and four years respectively . In 2012, the Connors family, a gypsy gang, were jailed for forcing  homeless men to work as slaves. A 'vulnerable' man said he was forced into unpaid labour by the Connors family, and was beaten, shoved into the boot of a car and made to sing to his captor's child, . He said he was treated 'like a slave' during the six months he spent with the travellers family at the Greenacres site near Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, and was told he would be murdered if he tried to leave. He eventually escaped by flagging down a police car while he was out canvassing for the Connors' block paving business. When police raided the site they found 13 workers housed in caravans, sheds and even a horse box. The tiny, grubby living quarters of one of the caravans on the Green Acres site near Leighton Buzzard . The court heard the group would recruit at centres for the homeless, soup kitchens or simply on the street with the promise of well-paid work. The men would have their heads shaved, paid little or nothing, worked seven days a week and were verbally abused and beaten. Married couple James John, 34, and Josie Connors, 31, who are cousins, were convicted of controlling, exploiting and abusing the men for financial gain and were jailed for 11 and four years respectively. The sentencing judge said they had 'brutally manipulated and exploited' destitute men. Saeeda Khan, 68, was convicted of trafficking the victim into the UK for exploitation . In 2011, a former hospital director was convicted of keeping an African woman as a slave in her London home for four years and ordered to pay her £25,000 in damages. Saeeda Khan, 68, was convicted of trafficking the victim into the UK for exploitation. The judge in the case also slapped her with a suspended nine-month prison term, and said she was guilty of the most appalling greed. Mwanahamisi Mruke, 47, originally from Tanzania, was flown to Britain in 2006 and forced to work 18-hour days for Khan at her home in Harrow, northwest London. However, Rivlin declined to give Khan a custodial sentence, citing her advance age, poor health and the fact that she has two adult disabled children. According to media reports, Khan would order Mruke around by ringing a bell. Mruke was also denied her passport and liberty and suffered the trauma of slavery in order to support her daughter who is studying in college in Africa. Initially, Khan gave Mruke an allowance of £10 a month to work around the clock at her beck and call, stated court documents. However, within a year she stopped paying her altogether. Among other revelations from the trial, Khan fed Mruke only two slices of bread a day and forced her to sleep on the kitchen floor. Mruke was also forbidden from leaving the house and she never learned English because the family only watched Pakistani TV.
Paul Broadbent warned there are 13,000 people exploited as cheap labour . He said trafficking  offered high profits with fairly low risk of prosecution . Gangmasters Licensing Authority investigating 300 gangs linked to slavery . Home secretary Theresa May described the scale of abuse as 'shocking'