The United Kingdom sanctions 25 targets involved in alleged smuggling persons | Migration news

Individuals and sanctioned entities include a small supplier of boats in Asia and gang leaders based in North Africa.

The United Kingdom has sanctioned 25 objectives involved in alleged smuggling persons, as part of a new financial sanctions regime targeting those who facilitate the trip of refugees and migrants through the English Channel via small boats.

Individuals and targeted entities on Wednesday include a small supplier of boats in Asia and gang leaders based in Balkans and North Africa. The “intermediaries” who put species in the Hawala money transfer system in the Middle East, which is used in payments linked to channel crossings, are also targeted.

It is not known to what extent the new sanctions regime will be effective because the British authorities can only freeze assets in the United Kingdom, and most smugglers are based elsewhere.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said on Wednesday that it was a “historic moment in government work to combat organized immigration crime (and) reduce irregular migration to the United Kingdom”.

“From Europe to Asia, we take the fight for smugglers which allow irregular migration, targeting them all over the world and making them pay for their actions,” he added.

This decision follows the legislation within the framework of the border security bill, asylum and immigration to accelerate the powers of application of the police forces and partners to investigate and continue the smugglers.

As part of the new sanctions regime, which was introduced two days ago, the government can now freeze assets, impose travel prohibitions and block access to the country’s financial system for individuals and entities involved in activating irregular migration, without relying on criminal or counter-terrorist laws.

Albanian Bledar Lala, head of the Belgian operations of an organized smuggling group, and a company in China which announced small boats for people who pass on an online market are among the sanctioned.

The number of refugees and migrants arriving on the southern coast of England via small boats in the north of France is a major political problem for the Labor government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, which saw the British far-right party achieving important political gains with a hard anti-immigration platform.

Starmer recently accepted migration agreements with France and Germany.

Earlier this month, Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron accepted An agreement “one, one” In which refugees and migrants arriving by small boats would have returned to France in exchange for an equal number of migrants to be able to come to the United Kingdom in France via a new legal path, which would be fully documented and subject to strict security controls.

Last week, Germany and the United Kingdom signed a historic defense treatyin which Berlin is committed to facilitation of the smuggling of refugees and migrants in the United Kingdom a criminal offense. The change of law, which should be adopted by the end of the year, will give the German authorities more powers to investigate and take measures against warehouses and storage facilities used by smugglers to hide small boats for level passages.

Some 37,000 people crossed the English channel in 2024, and more than 22,000 so far in 2025 – an increase of around 50% compared to the same period last year. Dozens of people died while trying the trip.