Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2016-03-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on individuals or groups involved in smuggling people from mainland Europe to the UK; and what estimate her Department has made of the number of people who are engaged in such activities.
James Brokenshire
Europol holds intelligence on more than 40,000 individuals suspected of being involved in migrant smuggling. It would not be appropriate to comment further on ongoing UK operational activity to investigate groups and individuals engaged in smuggling people to the UK from mainland Europe. We will relentlessly pursue those who are engaged in people smuggling. Between 1st April 2015 and 8 March 2016, Immigration Enforcement has achieved 132 disruptions against criminals involved in organised immigration crime.
Last summer, the Prime Minister announced the creation of the Organised Immigration Crime Taskforce bringing together officers from the National Crime Agency, Border Force, Immigration Enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service to exploit every opportunity at source, in transit countries and in Europe to identify and tackle organised crime groups criminal operations. The Taskforce funding was subsequently expanded in November 2015 to increase resources to 100 dedicated officers until 2020.
