Border Force foiling 'vile' people-smugglers 10 times per day - as minister insists 'we must go further'
The latest figures show an average of ten of these disruption activities occurred each day in 2025
People-smuggling gangs were thwarted by border officials more than 3,600 times last year, new data reveals.
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Since it was established in 2024, the Home Office's Border Security Command has overseen a 75% increase in disruption activity. This includes the conviction and arrest of key gang members, seizures of cash and the short-term foiling of planned crossings, such as the confiscation of boats and other equipment used to facilitate smuggling.
The latest figures show an average of ten of these disruption activities occurred each day in 2025.
Most significantly, major disruptions - such as the arrest or conviction of gangs’ head honchos - increased by 40% over the course of 2025.
Among the operations carried out by the team was the conviction of Ahmed Ramadan Mohaamad Ebid - dubbed 'Captain Ahmed' - who oversaw the smuggling of nearly 4,000 migrants across the Mediterranean while in the UK. Ebid will spend 25 years behind bars.
On top of this, work by the Border Security Command and the National Crime Agency resulted in the conviction in January of Adem Savas, a trafficking kingpin believed to have raked in millions through Channel crossings.
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Speaking to LBC Alex Norris, Minister for Border Security and Asylum, said the figures showed the government is “striking at the heart of these vile gangs.”
“Under our watch, the people-smuggling gangs are facing the consequences for abusing our borders and putting lives at risk.
“But this is not enough – we must go further.
“That is why we are making sweeping reforms to scale up removals of those with no right to be here and eliminate the incentives drawing illegal migrants to our country in the first place.
The latest tranche of immigration data, published earlier today by the Home Office, offers further encouraging news for the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, including a significant fall in the number of asylum seekers in taxpayer-funded hotels.
At the end of 2025, 30,657 were housed in asylum hotels, down almost 20% since the end of 2024. It represents an 18-month low.
Hotel use has therefore almost halved from its peak of 56,000 in September 2023.
The shift also indicates a rise in people being housed in other forms of accommodation, with the 72,769 people in houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) and former military sites, such as Wethersfield.
Asylum seekers have a right to accommodation in the United Kingdom while their claims are processed if they lack the finances to support themselves. When there is no longer-term accommodation available, the government uses hotel rooms.
The government is seeking to end the use of hotels for asylum seekers by 2029, with such accommodation estimated to have cost the taxpayer £15.3 billion over the last ten years, according to the National Audit Office.
The backlog of people waiting for an initial decision on their asylum claim, meanwhile, dropped to 64,000, an almost two-thirds reduction compared with the peak in June 2023.
Overall, more than 100,000 people claimed asylum in the UK in 2025, according to figures published today by the Home Office, a 4% annual decrease.
The latest tranche of data covers the calendar year of 2025.
Since coming to power, the government has repeatedly stated its intention to ‘smash gangs’ that are organizing small boat crossings.
The Border Security Command leads the Home Office’s efforts to break the business models of immigration gangs. Its commander, Martin Hewitt, was appointed to lead the force in September 2024.
In 2025, over 41,500 people crossed the Channel in small boats - the highest annual figure in three years.
More than 60% of those who made the journey came from just five countries: Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, and Somalia.
Yesterday, 545 migrants arrived on small boats from France, representing the busiest day of crossings so far this year, which both the Conservatives and Reform UK cite as evidence of the government failing to properly tackle the issue.
On X, Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, said: "There are now 107,003 people in asylum accommodation. Labour are moving illegal immigrants from asylum hotels to residential housing. There are far fewer checks and safeguards in dispersal accommodation which allows illegal immigrants to work illegally, commit more crime, and disappear into your community."
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK's Home Affairs spokesperson, added that Labour will never make the "tough decision[s]", pledging his party will "detain and deport all illegal migrants".