POLICE identified 55 potential victims of people trafficking in Scotland last year, 30 of them for sexual exploitation.

The UK's National Crime Agency said nine of the individuals were from Romania, which is now the biggest source of human trafficking to Britain.

Scottish cases accounted for just a fraction of the 2,744, people, including 602 children, the NCA believes were potential victims of trafficking for exploitation in 2013, an increase of 22 per cent on 2012. The body, formerly known as Soca, acknowledges that the problem, biggest in London, is hard to measure.

The NCA report stresses that the actual numbers of people being trafficked are higher.

"Some people who have been trafficked may not consider themselves to have been exploited," it said, citing "cultural values".

Liam Vernon, Head of the UK Human Trafficking Centre at the NCA, said: "Human trafficking for the purposes of exploitation is an insidious and complex crime and much of the exploitation is hidden from view.

"The National Crime Agency is committed to continually disrupting what is a vicious and criminal trade in human misery, which exploits the most vulnerable people, both here and abroad, for financial gain. Victims are being forced to work in private houses and in hospitality, farming, manufacturing and construction industries. In many cases, threats and violence are used to ensure compliance."

The Scottish number included five victims from Poland - increasingly the source of coerced labour identified by the NCA. There were also five from Slovakia - the biggest source of children brought in to Scotland to claim child benefit - and five from Thailand, again a source of prostitutes.

The report does not say how many of the people trafficked from Romania or Slovakia were from the widely abused Roma gypsy ethnic minority.

The NCA identified five ­potential victims from the UK. British citizens rank below only Romanians and Poles by number of victims throughout the UK, with most being exploited in the vice industry and coerced using drugs or alcohol.

Eighteen trafficked nationalities were identified in Scotland, including Africans and Chinese. Fourteen individuals were thought to be victims of labour exploitation and another nine of criminal exploitation. Traditionally foreign labour is used for everything from begging and pickpocketing, to caring for cannabis plants. One Scottish case involved a suspected domestic slave.