A NEW specialist police team has started arresting foreign criminals in Oxfordshire to return them to their homelands.

A specialist police unit in Thames Valley has arrested 19 people on European Arrest Warrants since the power to search for foreign convicts and wanted criminals was transferred from the Metropolitan Police six months ago.

So far people extradited by the courts have included a rapist, a man convicted of an axe attack and a man accused of slicing off someone’s ears with a knife.

The team has made three arrests in Oxfordshire, including two this month.

Waldemar Guzial, 33, was held on October 1 in Cypress Gardens, Bicester. In Poland, he is wanted for involvement in a £1,000 credit card fraud.

On the same day, Malgorzata Chuchro, 36, was arrested in Cranmer Road, Cowley, Oxford, after she was convicted of a £250 fraud in Poland.

Jan Rot, 53, accused of human trafficking in Poland 2003, was also arrested with a European Arrest Warrant in Oxford in June.

They are all currently awaiting extradition.

Det Sgt Nick Bell, of Thames Valley Police’s economic crime unit, said five of the 19 foreign criminals and suspects arrested in Thames Valley had also committed crimes since moving to England.

The unit is currently searching for seven foreign criminals wanted on European warrants who are still at large in the region.

Everyone arrested is put before Westminster Magistrates’ Court under the 2003 Extradition Act to be sent back to their homeland.

Det Sgt Bell added: “We get the warrants in and we go find them and arrest them. It’s as simple as that.

“We now have a specialist team and risk assess all arrests for the highest priority. Our emphasis is getting the most dangerous people first.

“Some of them wanted for dangerous offences are still dangerous while living here and we have evidence people on European Arrest Warrants are committing offences here in the UK.

“We don’t want people living and committing crimes in our community no matter where they are from.”

The 19 people arrested by police elsewhere in the Thames Valley area, including Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, have been extradited back to Poland, Ireland, Holland and Lithuania.

mwilkinson@oxfordmail.co.uk