The National Crime Agency (NCA) has arrested three alleged members of an Albanian organised crime group that has facilitated illegal entry of numerous immigrants into the UK.
The suspected group ringleaders, a 34-year-old man from Grays, Essex, and a 34-year-old man from Dagenham, London, were arrested on Monday. The illegal entry of immigrants was allegedly carried out via small boat and HGV transfers.
The crime ring has been reportedly charging immigrants between £2,500 and £7,500 for crossing into the UK. This includes the case of 46 immigrants who in August last year were intercepted in British waters after leaving the French coast on a small boat.
The NCA reported that most of them were Albanian nationals and included young children, as well as a convicted rapist, who has now been deported twice from Britain.
The agency believes three more events to be linked to the organised crime group in question. An HGV travelling from Caquelles in France has reportedly dropped off immigrants in Cobham, Surrey and Thurrock, Essex, on three separate occasions in autumn 2022.
A 55-year-old lorry driver from Belgium was arrested on Monday in Folkestone, Kent, while two other men were apprehended at an address in north London.
“We have dismantled a suspected organised crime group behind a number of dangerous migrant crossings last year. People smugglers do not care about the safety of those they transport, they seek to exploit them for profit,” said director of threat leadership at the NCA, Chris Farrimond.
Farrimond identified tackling organised immigration crime as a priority for the agency, adding there were more than 90 ongoing investigations into networks based in the UK and abroad.
“As we target callous organised criminal gangs, we will not hesitate to also pursue HGV drivers complicit in helping them,” he added.
Unsustainable Numbers
The 46 immigrants removed from a small boat last year were placed at a holding centre by Border Force officers. The NCA collaborated with the Border Force’s Small Boats Operational Command (SBOC) to investigate the case of illegal crossing.The SBOC, which came into force on Jan. 31, is part of the government’s response to curb small boats crossings to the country.
At the moment of its launch, the SBOC announced it would recruit 730 additional staff and introduce the use of drones, land-based radar, and cameras to track vessels on the water.
The initiative came following several months with high recorded numbers of small boats arrivals into the UK. Over 45,000 people arrived in the country by small boats in 2022, with more than half crossing in the three months of August, September, and October.
“Last year we saw an unsustainable and unacceptable number of people risking their lives to reach the UK illegally. This simply cannot continue and that is why we are taking immediate steps to tackle the evil people-smuggling gangs behind these deadly crossings and get our immigration system under control,” a government spokesperson said at the launch of the SBOC in January.
Delivering a statement on illegal immigration in June, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak argued that it was the government “who should decide who comes here, not criminal gangs.”
He added that since the government launched operations to curb illegal immigration earlier this year, small boat crossings had dropped 20 percent compared to 2022.
The UK government signed an agreement on illegal immigration with Albania at the end of last year. Since then over 1,000 Albanian nationals have been returned to Albania, including failed asylum seekers, foreign national offenders, and voluntary returns.
Under current government plans, illegal immigrants are to be housed on vessels like barges and in alternative sites, in order to cut high accommodation costs. According to the government, accommodation of illegal immigrants at hotels comes at great expense to the taxpayer, and is currently estimated at £6 million a day.
Whitehall’s policy has been criticised by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, among others, who argued that placing illegal immigrants on barges raises concerns about the safety, health, and wellbeing of people fleeing appalling circumstances.
