London, Jul 23 (PTI) Gang ring leaders, key intermediaries and suppliers of people smuggling equipment are among the first-ever set of global sanctions imposed by the UK government on Wednesday as part of a crackdown on illegal migration.
The sanctions target individuals and entities involved in people smuggling and include a small boat supplier in China, informal Hawala money movers in the Middle East and gang leaders based in the Balkans and North Africa.
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said its “world first” action also targets financiers and companies found to be enabling such illegal activities.
“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,” said Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
“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,” he said.
The designations are the first to be made under the UK’s new Global Irregular Migration Sanctions Regime.
“The regime is a world first and empowers the FCDO to impose sanctions not only on individuals and entities involved in people-smuggling to the UK, but also any financiers and companies found to be enabling their activities,” the FCDO said.
The sanctions mean the authorities can freeze the UK assets of those involved and these suspected criminals will also be banned from travelling to the UK. The action is aimed at disrupting the flow of money and materials by freezing property, bank accounts and other assets, which enable organised criminal gangs to operate their people smuggling trade.
National Crime Agency (NCA) Director Graeme Biggar said, “These new sanctions powers will complement the 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,” he said.
Among those sanctioned on Wednesday is Bledar Lala, an Albanian who is in control of the “Belgium operations” of an organised criminal group which smuggles migrants from Belgium across the English Channel to the UK.
Sanctions have also been brought against a company in China, Weihai Yamar Outdoors Product Co, which has advertised their small boats on an online marketplace explicitly for the purpose of people-smuggling.
The boats advertised are of the type used by criminal gangs in which migrants are packed, before being sent across the Channel at huge risk, the FCDO revealed.
The UK is also sanctioning Alen Basil, a former police translator who went on to lead a large smuggling network in Serbia, “terrorising refugees, with the aid of corrupt policemen”.
Mohammed Tetwani, a self-styled “King of Horgos”, is said to have brutally overseen a migrant camp in Horgos, Serbia, and led the “Tetwani” people smuggling gang.
Tetwani and his followers are known for their violent treatment of refugees who decline their services or cannot pay for them, the UK government notes.
The sanctions package also covers individuals like Muhammed Khadir Pirot, a Hawala banker involved in informal money transfer networks, which people smugglers use as a way of taking payment from migrants.
All of those sanctioned this week are publicly named and barred from engaging with the UK financial system, helping to further undermine their operations, the FCDO said. PTI AK NPK NPK
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