Interpol ‘most wanted’ criminals ARE among migrants on our beaches
It’s been suspected all along... now the shocking confirmation
CRIMINALS hunted by Interpol for serious crimes have entered Britain on Channel crossings.
A number of wanted individuals subject to ‘red notices’ have been identified among small boat migrants, the Mail can disclose.
In addition, immigration offenders who have previously been deported have reentered the UK by boat and ended up at the Home Office’s beleaguered Manston processing centre.
Sources told the Mail that some red notice offenders had also been taken to the Kent facility – although this was denied by the Home Office last night.
It has long been feared that criminals could be taking advantage of illegal crossings to enter the country. The revelation that fugitives are exploiting the Channel crisis to reach Britain will now raise serious questions about the UK’s porous borders.
Of primary concern will be the possibility that criminals can arrive undetected aboard boats and disappear, as about 80 migrants managed to do at Shakespeare beach, near Dover, on October 23. It was unclear last night how many criminals who have been able to enter the country were housed at the Manston base, near Ramsgate, and whether they had later been moved to hotels around the country. But sources said ‘dozens’ of foreign nationals who had previously been deported had been found re-entering Britain by small boat from northern France.
The Mail has reported how an Albanian man convicted of murder and firearms offences in Greece had been allowed to continue his asylum claim after arriving here by small boat.
Mariglen Soshari, 31, is now in jail after being hauled before Folkestone magistrates on Thursday where he was handed a 60-day sentence for entering the UK illegally. He arrived in Kent on a small boat last month and filled in a questionnaire at the Manston facility where he detailed his previous convictions. The court heard he applied for asylum on October 12, two days after his arrival – and that his application would continue.
The Mail can reveal that 60 per cent of Manston’s 2,500- strong population is Albanian. Of those, eight out of ten are young men. In another worrying development, toys donated by charities to children held at Manston have been confiscated by men who have used plastic and metal parts to construct makeshift blades.
In some cases, security guards at the centre have been attacked.
It comes as an investigation by the BBC revealed yesterday how Albanian drug gangs are using migrant camps in northern France as a recruitment ground – even offering to pay for the passage of those prepared to work in the drugs trade when they reach Britain. One gang member assured an undercover reporter it was ‘very easy’ to reach the UK.
Asked for advice on how to claim asylum, the smuggler said in social media messages: ‘You have to invent a reason why you’re here. People usually say they have debts, problems in general.’
It also emerged yesterday that Home Office contractors have been removed from Manston after trying to sell drugs to asylum seekers. Migrants claimed security staff had offered to sell them cannabis, the Guardian reported.
A Home Office spokesman said the individuals involved were ‘swiftly removed’ and pledged to ‘continue to take robust action’ against errant employees.
Interpol red notices, issued to its 195 member countries, ask law enforcement agencies to ‘ locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action’.
According to Interpol’s website 7,116 notices were live yesterday.
The Home Office said Manston ‘remains resourced and equipped to process migrants securely’, including comprehensive background checks. A spokesman said: ‘There is no evidence to suggest anyone with an Interpol red notice has arrived at Manston. Any individual found with a criminal record will be detained... pending their removal from the UK.’
‘Serious questions about UK’s borders’
THE Mail would like to congratulate the BBC on an excellent investigation into Albanian drug syndicates which are using the migrant camps of northern France as recruiting grounds.
Its journalists found gangs offering to fund the cross-Channel passage of fellow countrymen prepared to help expand their criminal operations in the UK and pay them well once here.
The organisations are also recruiting energetically in Albania itself. The BBC visited one town where 70 per cent of the male population had left for Britain.
This paper has carried out similar investigations. But the fact the penny has finally dropped with the achingly liberal BBC that these people are not genuine refugees is hugely significant.
(Could this strange new realism have anything to do with Deborah Turness, the new BBC News chief brought in from ITV with a brief to tackle institutional Leftwing bias? Let’s hope so.)
The simple truth is that vast numbers of those crossing the Channel are either economic migrants or have been enlisted directly to work in the black economy. Yet they are a large part of the reason our asylum system is on the brink of collapse.
Around a third of the 40,000 crossing from France this year were from Albania, a free democratic country hoping to join the EU. That is up from just 50 in 2020.
Labour accused Home Secretary Suella Braverman of inflammatory language when she described the influx as an ‘invasion’. But everyone knows what she meant.
This country has a proud record of giving sanctuary. New figures showing one in six people living in Britain was born abroad emphasise our kindness to outsiders.
But if the asylum system is to survive, a swifter mechanism must be found for distinguishing those genuinely fleeing persecution from those who are not.
We are spending £6million a day on housing asylum seekers and accommodation is running dry – hence the overcrowding at assessment centres like Manston.
Councils, including some Labour ones, are objecting to having large numbers of migrants placed in local hotels because it risks unbalancing their communities.
New Labour’s open door policy and Human Rights Act have made it nigh-on impossible to deport even obviously bogus claimants. That has to change.
Whether it is sending asylum seekers to third countries for processing, or a law change which drastically cuts the time for appeals, the process must be shortened.
There’s no sign of the influx abating, and pressure on the NHS, schools and other creaking public services will get even worse.
Rishi Sunak must back his Home Secretary in defying the migration lobby – however much they shriek about alleged cruelty and racism. We’ve been taken for a ride quite long enough.