The squalid lives of illegal migrant workers were exposed yesterday – in a Sussex shopping street.

Twenty beds were found crammed into three rooms above Interwok in Chapel Road, Worthing.

Two suspected illegal workers were detained by immigration officials and the restaurant manager arrested in the lunchtime raid.

The UK Border Agency visited Interwok and nearby Fortune Inn – which is run by the same company – after receiving reports of possible illegal working.

After searching the kitchen and the cramped upstairs rooms the officers said environmental health services, trading standards and firefighters would be asked to inspect the building.

Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor, of the UK Border Agency, said: “This isn’t trafficking in normal terms, but this is just as bad in my view.

“For them it is a good life, they get paid more money than they are in China."

The restaurant manager, a 35-yearold British man, was arrested on suspicion of facilitating a breach of immigration law.

Two Chinese men, aged 21 and 27, were detained on suspicion of either working or being in the country illegally.

One was suspected of being a failed asylum seeker, the other of entering the country on a student visa and staying on to work.

At the Fortune Inn a 32-year-old Chinese man was also detained.