UK in grip of loan sharks, programme claims.

Nov 22 2010 by Jane Tyler, Sunday Mercury

DESPERATE cash-strapped UK households are in the grip of ruthless loan sharks.

More than 310,000 households are using illegal money lenders, latest figures show.

BBC1’s Inside Out programme tomorrow reveals the true extent of the problem when it speaks to investigators from the Illegal Money Lending Team. The unit is run by Birmingham City Council, but now also covers the North West, Yorkshire and Humberside, South East and Central England.

And they found how some loan sharks can charge interest rates of up to 130,000 per cent.

Over the last six years, the team’s investigators across the UK have secured convictions which have led to jail terms totalling 80 years.

Illegal debt to the tune of £25 million has been written off, and £2.5 million has been seized and confiscated from loan sharks.