Kinshasa, July 23rd, 2025 (CPA).- The British government has announced on Wednesday sanctions against 25 individuals and organisations suspected of being involved in illegal immigration networks, in an attempt to stem crossings of the English Channel, according to international media reports.
‘This first set of sanctions targets network leaders based in the Balkans and North Africa, four criminal groups, a Chinese inflatable boat company, and individuals in the Middle East involved in an informal money transfer system known as hawala,’ has declared David Lammy, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. ‘These measures, which include asset freezes and/or travel bans to the UK, are being taken under a new sanctions regime specifically designed to target migrant smuggling networks,’ he has added. Furthermore, David Lammy has also said that the British government is working to destroy smuggling networks around the world. ‘From Europe to Asia, we are leading the fight against smugglers who facilitate irregular migration, targeting them wherever they are in the world,’ he has specified.
Among those targeted is an Albanian, Bledar Lala, described by the British government as the leader of a network organising the illegal passage of migrants from Belgium to the United Kingdom via the English Channel, as well as Alen Basil, a former police translator who has taken over the leadership of a large migrant smuggling network in Serbia.
This category also includes Mohammed Tetwani, described as the leader of a migrant camp in Horgos, Serbia, who uses violent methods, and Muhammed Khadir Pirot, who receives money from migrants to pay for their illegal passage from Iraqi Kurdistan to Europe via Turkey. On the other hand, a Chinese company, Weihai Yamar Outdoors Product Co, is being sanctioned for manufacturing inflatable boats that it promotes for use in human trafficking. The number of migrants arriving in small boats has exceeded 23,500 since the beginning of the year, a record level for this period. The issue is highly sensitive in the United Kingdom, where clashes recently took place outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Epping, north-east London.