In addition, 100 specialist investigators and intelligence officers will be recruited to boost border security, as part of a multi-million pound investment to smash criminal smuggling gangs.

Sir Keir Starmer outlined the investments at the INTERPOL General Assembly in Glasgow today [4 November 2024]. The INTERPOL event has not been held in the UK in over 50 years.

The PM announced an additional £75m to boost border security, bringing the investment in the Border Security Command over the next two years to £150m.

The General Assembly is INTERPOL’s supreme governing body and comprises senior ministerial and policing leads from the organisation’s 196 member states.

In his speech, the PM set out his plans to tackle international terrorist and drug smuggling gangs to dismantle the people smuggling gangs who drive illegal migration, profit from human misery and represent a serious threat to global security.

He also set out how the £150m will provide additional specialist investigators and state of the art surveillance equipment to ensure those behind this criminal activity are stopped and brought to justice, a government statement said.

This major funding boost for the government’s new Border Security Command will initially be directed towards a range of enforcement and intelligence activity, including:

• Investing heavily in NCA (National Crime Agency) technology and capabilities, delivering advanced data exploitation and improvements to technologies to boost collaboration with European partners to investigate and break people smuggling networks.
• 300 staff for the new Border Security Command, who will strengthen global partnerships, deliver new legislation and lead the system through investment and strategy.
• 100 specialist investigators and intelligence officers for the NCA, dedicated to tackling criminals who facilitate people smuggling.
• Creating a new specialist OIC Intelligence Source Unit which will cohere intelligence flows from key police forces.
• Boosting the Crown Prosecution Service’s ability to deliver charging decisions more quickly on international organised crime cases.

The Border Security Command, led by Martin Hewitt CBE QPM, will be provided with enhanced powers – through a new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill – to tackle organised immigration crime, while providing for strong and effective border security.

New measures will make it easier to detect, disrupt and deter those seeking to engage in and benefit from organised immigration crime. The command will also co-ordinate the work of intelligence agencies and law enforcement, who lead joint investigations with European counterparts to ensure the UK can bring those responsible to justice.

Sir Keir will also announce that the UK government has increased its in-year support for INTERPOL’s global operations through a £6m investment, which harnesses the organisation’s unique capabilities to tackle serious organised crime affecting the UK.

Addressing the General Assembly, the PM will say that closer co-operation with international partners is key as he details how the gangs’ operations span from the money markets in Kabul through to the Kurdish region of Iraq and right across Europe and into the UK.

He will stress the government’s ongoing commitment to strengthening security agreements to facilitate greater sharing of intelligence and more joint operational work, in particular through Europol.

The Home Office will also invest £24m in the new financial year to tackle international serious organised crime affecting the UK including drugs and firearms, fraud, trafficking and exploitation. Funds will in part be used to bolster work done by special prosecutors and operational partners in the Western Balkans.

There were more than 5,000 drug-related deaths in 2023, with most of the illegal drugs causing these coming from overseas or facilitated by transnational gangs. ISOC funding will also be used to tackle drug smuggling upstream and at the UK border, building on recent successes, such as the effective collaboration with the US and Ecuador, which has resulted in the seizure of 19 tonnes of cocaine.

The announcement comes a month after Britain joined up to a new G7 anti-migrant smuggling action plan, which included pledges to bolster border security, combat transnational organised crime and protect vulnerable individuals from exploitation by smugglers.

The plan includes new, intelligence-led joint investigative actions to target criminal smuggling routes, working with social media platforms and internet providers to remove harmful content promoting illegal migration services or advertising fake job opportunities, and strengthening capabilities to monitor and anticipate irregular migration flows at both global and regional levels.

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