What's that in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Not quite.

In fact it’s a giant inflatable shark and it’s in Kent to highlight the risks of illegal money lenders.

At 12:30pm today at County Hall in Maidstone, a huge balloon sporting the Kent County Council logo will be launched to mark the start of a new partnership between Kent Trading Standards and the South East Illegal Money Lending Team to crack down on loan sharks operating in the county.

The team, originally founded in Birmingham to tackle the problem in the Midlands, has had success and is now being rolled out across the UK.

So far over 6,000 victims of loan sharks have been helped and written off over £7million of illegal debt.

They offer support to people abused by these money lenders. In some cases, victims have been raped, beaten or kidnapped because they are unable to pay extortionate interest rates.

The highest interest rate the Money Lending Team has encountered is 117,000 per cent.

Representatives from both Kent Trading Standards and the South East team will be available for the public to talk to at the event.

They are encouraging people to come forward if they have borrowed money from an illegal lender promoting the message "you haven't broken the law - they have!"