UK Creates Major Crime Task To Handle Drug Smuggling To Human Trafficking
In 2009 the UK Border Agency (UKBA) specialist immigration crime teams.
Wworking with 300 seconded police officers, prosecuted more than 2,200 people for organised immigration crimes including human trafficking, fraud and drug smuggling.
Border and Immigration Minister Phil Woolas, speaking today at the European Serious Organised Crime conference, confirmed the UKBA as one of the country’s largest law enforcement bodies.
Migrants who come to the UK enter into a deal to play by the rules. Overseas criminals who break that pact and damage local communities will find UKBA officers using immigration powers to tackle them.
Phil Woolas said:
“Smugglers, forgers, traffickers be warned – the UK is a hostile environment. You will be targeted, you will be caught and immigration powers can and will be used to prosecute you and remove you from the country.
“The UK Border Agency is responding to local community needs as a law enforcement agency. Our borders are stronger than ever and frontline immigration staff work collaboratively with police, local authorities and government agencies to target and disband immigration crime that preys on vulnerable individuals.”
During his speech Phil Woolas launched the UKBA’s five-year crime strategy, ‘Protecting our Border, Protecting the Public’, which sets out the UKBA’s approach at home and abroad to preventing crime and detecting and targeting criminals who seek to abuse the immigration system.
He also set out actions that have been taken by the UKBA to clamp down on crime, including:
• electronic ‘e-border’ checks – to date triggering more than 5,000 arrests including people wanted for murder, rape and fraud;
• a freight targeting system that provides real-time risk assessment and powerful new scanners to detect smuggled goods at port;
• providing detection technology and training to other countries, including to the special fraud unit of Nigeria’s Police Force – assisting it in tracking down the manufacturers and suppliers of fraudulent documents;
• UKBA officers stationed around the world stopping 42,000 inadequately documented passengers from boarding flights bound for the UK last year;
• UKBA joining the fraud prevention agency CIFAS in 2010;
• between April and September 2009 teams identifying 350 potential victims of trafficking including 104 children; and
• seizing £343 million worth of illicit drugs, 5,800 dangerous weapons and 3,165,849 items of counterfeit and pirated goods between April 2008 and March 2009.
The UKBA crime strategy tackles crime by working in partnership with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Association of Chief Police Officers, police forces, HM Revenue & Customs, Department of Work and Pensions, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, Department of Health, Crown Prosecution Service, UK human trafficking centre, industry bodies such as airlines and hauliers, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and foreign governments.
Topics: 2010, Association of Chief Police Officers, borders, Britain, crime, criminals, Crown Prosecution Service, Department of Health, Department of Work and Pensions, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, drug smuggling, drugs, e-border check, European Serious Organised Crime, fraud, freight, Governance, government, government agencies, Great Britain, HM Revenue & Customs, human trafficking, immigration, law enforcement, Local Authorities, migrants, moniter, monitor, murder, news, organised crime, police, police forces, preventing crime, prosecution, rape, Risk Assessment, U.K., UK, UK Border Agency, UK human trafficking centre, United Kingdom, victims
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