UK sanctions people smugglers

The UK has sanctioned gang ringleaders, key intermediaries and suppliers of people smuggling equipment.

The sanctions target individuals and entities involved in people-smuggling and driving irregular migration to the UK and cover a range of activities from supplying small boats explicitly for smuggling, to sourcing fake passports, middlemen facilitating illicit payments through Hawala, people-smuggling via lorries and small boats, and the gangland leaders themselves.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: "This is a landmark moment in the government’s work to tackle organised immigration crime, reduce irregular migration to the UK and deliver on the Plan for Change. 

"From Europe to Asia we are taking the fight to the people-smugglers who enable irregular migration, targeting them wherever they are in the world and making them pay for their actions.  

"My message to the gangs who callously risk vulnerable lives for profit is this: we know who you are, and we will work with our partners around the world to hold you to account."

A company in China has been sanctioned, they advertised their their small boats on an online marketplace explicitly for the purpose of people-smuggling.

Alen Basil, a former police translator who went on to lead a large smuggling network in Serbia, has also been sanctioned. He was found living in a house in Serbia worth more than one million euros, bought with money extorted from migrants.

Muhammed Khadir Pirot, a hawala banker involved in informal money transfer networks, has also been sanctioned.

The designations are the first made under the Global Irregular Migration Sanctions Regime.

NCA Director General Graeme Biggar said: "The NCA is determined to use every tool at our disposal to target, disrupt and dismantle the criminal networks involved in people-smuggling, preventing harm to those they exploit for profit and protecting the UK’s border security.    

"These new sanctions powers will complement that NCA activity. We have worked with the FCDO and partners to progress the designation of these sanctioned persons.   

"They will give the UK a new way of pursuing, undermining and frustrating the operational capability of a wide range of organised immigration crime networks, including those who facilitate or enable offending."