UK Sanctions People-Smuggling Gangs Across Globe
The UK has sanctioned over two dozen people and groups globally, including smugglers in the Balkans, a Chinese boat firm, and Iraqi-linked individuals, in a landmark move to stop small boat crossings. The action follows intense domestic pressure.
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The United Kingdom on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen people, groups, and suppliers across the globe accused of facilitating illegal migrant crossings, in the first-ever use of such powers to combat the small boats crisis in the English Channel.
The landmark move imposes asset freezes and travel bans on 20 individuals, four gangs, and one company, targeting key figures from the Balkans to the Middle East and a small boat supplier in China. The action follows a pledge by the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to "smash the gangs" and comes amid intense domestic pressure over record numbers of migrant arrivals from northern France.
The UK's Foreign Secretary David Lammy called it "a landmark moment in the government's work to tackle organised immigration crime."
"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," Lammy added in a statement. "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."
The sanctions package is extensive, targeting individuals and entities at multiple levels of the smuggling chain. Among those sanctioned are:
- Bledar Lala, described as an Albanian controlling the "Belgium operations" of a criminal group.
- Alen Basil, a former police translator who the UK says went on to lead a large smuggling network in Serbia, "terrorising refugees, with the aid of corrupt policemen".
- Mohammed Tetwani, the self-styled "'King of Horgos' over his brutal running of a migrant camp in Horgos, Serbia." His gang is known as one of the most violent in the Balkans, allegedly holding migrants for ransom and sexually abusing women.
- Seven alleged people-smugglers linked to Iraq.
- Three people accused of using the "hawala" banking system for illicit transfers.
- Weihai Yamar Outdoor Product Co, a Chinese company that advertised its small boats online "explicitly for the purpose of people-smuggling".
The action delivers on a plan announced earlier in the week. According to a Monday report in The Guardian, Foreign Secretary Lammy had signaled the new sanctions regime would target anyone involved in assisting illegal immigration, including corrupt foreign officials.
The move comes as the UK government grapples with persistent challenges related to irregular migration. According to UK government statistics, thousands of people continue to make the dangerous journey each year, with the primary nationalities of those arriving in recent years including Afghans, Iranians, Albanians, Iraqis, and Syrians.
The issue has become politically perilous in the UK. The Guardian reported that on Monday, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary from the opposition Conservative party, claimed women and girls were facing a “public safety crisis” as a result of crimes committed by “illegal immigrants.”
His comments in the Commons followed a protest outside an Essex hotel believed to house asylum seekers, which took place after a 38-year-old asylum seeker was charged with sexual assault. He has denied the charge.
Responding to the opposition, Diana Johnson, the crime and policing minister, said it was “vital that the criminal justice procedures are able to run their course” and stated that the government was changing the law to ensure those convicted of sexual offences are not granted asylum, The Guardian noted.
