(Bloomberg) — The UK will freeze the properties and bank accounts of financiers that the government says are facilitating people-smuggling, as it introduces a new sanctions regime to stem the flow of irregular migration.
Dozens of individuals and companies, spanning gang leaders, those trading fake passports and firms selling small boat equipment used to cross the channel from France to Britain, will be targeted by sanctions when they are imposed on Wednesday, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office said late Monday in a statement. They will be publicly named, making it illegal for the UK financial system to engage with them, the government said.
After a year in power, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under growing pressure to tackle irregular migration, because the number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats has hit record levels. Earlier this month, the premier unveiled a new ‘one in, one out’ migrant-return deal with France, which will initially only cover around 50 returns a week. Over one thousand migrants have arrived via this route in the past week alone.
The government has been working on an extensive pipeline of sanctions to be put in place under new laws, with the first wave this week being used to target who ministers see as the linchpins of people smuggling: the businesspeople at the very top of the trade, rather than smaller-scale criminals. The people sanctioned this week are also expected to span various countries and include corrupt police officers and middlemen facilitating payments through so-called hawala networks of money brokers.
“The new sanctions regime marks a decisive step in our fight against the criminal gangs who profit from human misery,” Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper said in the statement. “It will allow us to target the assets and operations of people-smugglers wherever they operate, cutting off their funding and dismantling their networks piece by piece.”
Starmer-Macron Migrant Deal Shows Limit of UK’s Europe Reset
The new sanctions regime — which the government says is the world’s first dedicated to targeting people smuggling and organized immigration crime – is novel and untested, and the opposition Conservative party expressed doubt over whether it would be effective.
“You don’t stop the Channel crossings by freezing a few bank accounts in Baghdad or slapping a travel ban on a dinghy dealer in Damascus,” Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said in a statement. “Swathes of young men are arriving daily, in boats bought online, guided by traffickers who laugh at our laws and cash in on our weakness.”
The idea is that the program targets the supply of money, as well as the materials used, to facilitate the trade. The UK is in talks with Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy to encourage them to use existing sanctions designation powers, or develop their own regime, to work in tandem with the UK’s new program.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com