UK team works with French to break up Channel gangs

The Joint Intelligence Cell (JIC) says the gangs were operating on French soil and that the dismantling of the groups came as a result of NCA officers working alongside their French counterparts.

The NCA said that many of the groups were involved in orchestrating small boat crossings. There is growing pressure on law enforcement to shut off the supply of rigid inflatable boats and disrupt the networks smuggling people into Europe and over the Channel.

Despite the arrests and the UK sending France £700m since 2020 to assist in stemming the flow of boats, this year is projected to see record numbers of asylum seekers arriving by small boat.

Increasingly aggressive policing tactics on French beaches have been criticised by monitoring groups, who say the approach leads to higher numbers of asylum seekers forced into single boats and greater risk to life.

The JIC is based in northern France and operated by the NCA with Home Office International Operations and Oltim, a French police unit that specialises in tackling organised immigration crime.

In one case, Iranian-born Kaiwan Poore, 37, was detained by the NCA as he attempted to board a flight to Turkey at Manchester airport in July 2022.

In November last year, following his extradition from the UK to France, Poore became one of 18 people convicted for people smuggling by a court in Lille, following an investigation led by OLTIM. Members of the network, thought to be behind thousands of Channel crossings, were handed sentences between one and 15 years. Poore was jailed for five years.

The head of one people-smuggling operation was jailed for eight years in June after a small boat crossing that left four people dead and another four missing in December 2022. Eight of his accomplices were jailed for seven years each.

Deputy director Rick Jones, who leads the NCA’s international network, said: “We continue to work with French partners to identify facilitators based in northern France, and have supplied intelligence which we know has prevented crossings and led to the arrests of the individuals involved.

“Together with them we are determined to do all we can to target these cruel people-smuggling gangs who are putting lives at risk.”

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