Hundreds of people have been detained in Northern Ireland as they tried to cross the border into the UK in an operation aimed at cracking down on smugglers.
Immigration authorities say criminal gangs are charging up to €8,000 for illegal travel packages offering safe routes across the Channel in small boats.
The intercepts in Northern Ireland are part of a Home Office campaign called Operation Combie, which was launched in April last year as an extension of regular Operation Seagull led by immigration intelligence. The operation is a long-standing joint operation with the Garda Síochána of the Republic of Ireland to combat human rights abuses. Common Travel Area (CTA).
Border Protection Minister Angela Eagle said the UK government was committed to fighting smugglers at “every border”.
“Driven by greed, these gangs have no regard for human life or safety, charging exorbitant fees and preying on people desperately trying to escape hardship, forcing them into illegal and dangerous situations. ” she said.
The CTA only allows British and Irish nationals to travel without a passport between the Island of Ireland, Great Britain, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, but in Ireland undocumented migrants are using Belfast as a backdoor. It has been controversial due to suspicions that it is. To the Republic.
The Home Office said 35 people were arrested and £5,000 in criminal cash, a car and two sets of fake documents were seized in a three-day Operation Combee this week, which focused on travel in the opposite direction.
The UK's Immigration Enforcement Crime and Financial Investigation Team worked with Northern Ireland Police and the Garda, involving staff from ports and airports in Northern Ireland, Manchester, Liverpool, Holyhead and Cairnryan.
On Tuesday, Home Office officials detained four people in Belfast as they tried to board a ferry or plane. One was an Iranian national who was believed to have traveled from Barcelona to Dublin posing as a Ukrainian citizen.
He was stopped by two immigration officers as he approached the boarding card gate at Belfast Airport.
Within minutes, police officers suspected his Ukrainian passport was fake and he admitted to being Iranian.
Officials said the arrests could be a “low-hanging fruit” linked to a potential smuggling ring using the Common Travel Area in Dublin and other parts of Europe as a backdoor into the UK.
Inspector Jonathan Evans, from Immigration's Criminal and Financial Investigation Unit in Belfast, said the number of stamps in the man's passport were designed to make him appear well-travelled. .
This suggests that the document was created by a criminal organization with an entry stamp from another country “to make it appear that the person has passed multiple border checks before.”
The police officer added: “We will now check his fingerprints in a database and discuss this with Europol.” “We will probably issue a nationwide alert to see if other fake Ukrainian passports are being used, which could lead to new tactics by organized criminals. .”
Justice Minister Helen McEntee says there is anecdotal evidence behind the sharp rise in the number of asylum seekers heading from the UK to Belfast and back to Dublin. It became the center of political controversy in Ireland earlier this year after saying it was. Some of those seeking international protection had entered the country via Northern Ireland.
Maintaining an invisible border between Northern Ireland and the Republic was a political red line in the Brexit negotiations. Ireland and the EU faced off against Brexiteers who wanted a hard border.
Asylum applications in Ireland have soared from just under 5,000 in 2019 to more than 17,536 so far this year, according to Irish government data.
Mr Evans said there was evidence that smuggling rings were now targeting Dublin as a backdoor into the UK as a VIP alternative to small boats crossing the Channel.
In the two previous Combee exercises this year, 59 people were arrested as part of a criminal investigation into suspected smuggling, 12 were detained and fake passports and €430,000 in cash were seized.
Among the nationalities who have used Ireland as a “back door” are Syrians, Kuwait's stateless Arab minority Beduni, and other Europeans who have suffered what Evans calls “adverse” immigration decisions in the UK. .
“They're leveraging common travel areas in a way that hasn't been done before. So what's happening now is that we're using Combee's kind of overt approach to raise public awareness. “This is all about getting rid of gangs,” Evans said.
Reports from people desperate to pay gangsters to travel from Dublin to Belfast say they have to pay for “flights from Europe, fake documents, travel costs to Belfast, and where in the UK the destination is.” But they charge between 5,000 and 8,000 euros for the flight tickets to get there.” ”.
“It could cost the gang a total of €1,000. This is a lucrative business,” Mr Evans said.
