The first wave of the United Kingdom’s sanctions aimed at key figures in people-smuggling gangs have come into force in a bid to hit those involved in assisting illegal immigration.
They target 25 individuals and entities including a small boat supplier in Asia and gang leaders based in the Balkans and North Africa. They also hit “middlemen” putting cash through the Hawala legal money transfer system in the Middle East, which is used in payments linked to Channel crossings.
Albanian Bledar Lala, leader of the Belgian operations of an organised smuggling group, and a company in China that advertiseds mall boats for people smuggling on an online marketplace are among those sanctioned.
A former police translator, Alen Basil, who went on to lead a smuggling network in Serbia, aided by corrupt policemen, is also on the list.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said it was a “landmark moment in the government’s work to tackle organised immigration crime [and] reduce irregular migration to the UK.” “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,” Lammy said.
The measures aim to target organised criminal gangs wherever they are in the world and disrupt their flow of cash, including freezing bank accounts, property and other assets, to hinder their activities.
It will be illegal for UK businesses and banks to deal with any one named on the list.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer took power a year ago promising to curb the journeys by “smashing the gangs” facilitating the crossings, but has struggled to deliver on the pledge.
Nearly 24,000 migrants have made the perilous journey across the Channel so far in 2025, the highest ever tally at this point in a year. The issue has become politically perilous in the UK, blamed for helping to fuel the rise of the far-right and violence at anti-migrant demonstrations.
Protests have erupted sporadically outside hotels believed to house asylum-seekers, with a recent demonstration outside one in Epping, east of London, descending into clashes that injured eight police officers.
The riots sparked by the Southport attacks in July 2024 also saw suspected asylum-seeker hotels attacked and anti-migrant sentiment on display.
Wednesday’s designations represent the UK’s first use of its new “Global Irregular Migration Sanctions Regime”.
It claims the regime is a “world first”, empowering the Foreign Office to target foreign financiers and companies as well as
London hit alleged “gangland boss” Mohammed Tetwani with sanctions, noting he was dubbed the “King of Horgos” over his brutal running of a migrant camp in the Serbian town Horgos.
Tetwani leads the Tetwani people-smuggling gang, which the UK branded “one of the Balkans’ most violent” and accused of holding migrants for ransom and sexually abusing women unable to pay the fees demanded.
The sanctions package targets three people accused of using the ancestral “hawala” banking system, which allows cash transfers without money actually moving, for irregular migration.
The sanctioned company in China -- Weihai Yamar Outdoor Product Co -- has advertised its small boats online “explicitly for the purpose of people-smuggling,” according to the Foreign Office.
Tom Keatinge, of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the sanctions were “a new front in the UK’s efforts to control a business model that brings profit to the enablers” and misery to victims.
“However, I would caution against overpromising,” he told AFP. “Talk of freezing assets and using sanctions to ‘smash the gangs’ seems far-fetched and remains to be seen. “History suggests that such assertions hold governments hostage to fortune.” — dpa and AFP
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