Loan sharks are turning to increasingly violent methods to force victims to pay up, police in the West Midlands warned today.

Kidnap, violence and intimidation are among tactics used by illegal money lenders to fleece their victims of what often amounts to tens of thousands of pounds more than originally borrowed.

Baseball bats and machetes are among the weapons seized by the National Illegal Money Lending team, based in Digbeth, Birmingham, in recent months.

The head of the team, Tony Quigley, warned: “Some of these people are formidable – they have reputations in the community where they operate and so people won’t necessarily report them readily.

“It’s a real power-based relationship. The loan shark can keep raising the amount the person owes to incredible amounts and there’s nothing the victim can do except pay them, or report them.

“It can be extremely lucrative – one case we were involved with in Cheshire was against an illegal money lender who had made £4 million in just a few years, owned a country house and had all the trappings of being wealthy.”

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