Record number of NCA officers deployed to tackle people smugglers

The dedicated NCA officers are backed by enhanced capabilities and additional intelligence officers who play a strong role in increasing law enforcement’s ability to go after the smuggling gangs. This means hundreds more specialist officers are tracking down, detaining and bringing the criminal gangs behind small boat crossings and wider organised immigration crime to justice.

Working with international partners, these officers have seized 1,109 small boats or engines since the General Election. Specialist officers assess that this is having a significant impact on smugglers’ boat and engine supply, making it more difficult and costlier for the gangs to source equipment.

Had this equipment made its way into the hands of the criminal smuggling gangs, it could have facilitated over 72,000 migrant crossings.

Visit to Dover

The announcement comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited the joint Command Room at Dover’s Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre to see the operation guarding the Channel at first hand.  

Burnham met officers from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the NCA and Border Security Command, all of whom work side-by-side to track movements across the Dover Strait around the clock.

The Prime Minister saw how surveillance drones capable of remaining airborne for up to 16 hours are used to detect small boat activity and direct officers on to the gangs behind it. Just last year, the NCA was involved in circa 300 arrests to disrupt gangs bringing migrants to the UK on an illegal basis.

Investment for the new officers comes as part of the £280 million-plus funding for Border Security Command. Action to tackle and dismantle the smuggling gangs is said to be “at record levels”. People smuggler-related arrests involving the NCA have surged by 55% in the last year, while overall organised immigration crime arrests are up by 74% compared to the previous year. According to the Government, this is “all part of the biggest crackdown on immigration crime” to date.

More work to be done

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood explained: “We’ve more than doubled the number of NCA officers working on immigration crime in order to tackle the gangs who profit from illegal small boat crossings. We have seized over 1,000 boats and engines, arrested thousands of criminals and stopped tens of thousands of attempted crossings.”  

Mahmood continued: “There’s more to be done, but this Government is restoring control at our border.”

Rob Jones, director general of operations at the NCA, said: “We have made smuggling gangs a top priority for the NCA, using this uplift to deliver more arrests, more seizures and more disruption to the ruthless people smugglers behind this trade.”

Jones added: “This is a global issue and the NCA has unique capabilities at home and abroad which we are now using at scale. With the help of partners nationally and internationally, we’re making significant headway in combating this threat, from removing smugglers’ social media adverts through to gathering intelligence, making arrests and seizing small boats equipment.”

In conclusion, Jones explained: “Our message to the gangs is clear: moving people in small boats and supplying equipment becomes riskier for them by the day. We will not stop in our pursuit wherever they operate.”

Endangerment Offence 

One recent operation witnessed 25 small boats and engines seized in Felixstowe, preventing up to 2,000 potential migrant crossings.

The new Endangerment Offence, which was passed in the Government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, has now led to sentences for ten small boat pilots, with combined terms of nearly 20 years behind bars, all in just two months. This is the newest tool in the Government’s arsenal as it brings smuggling gangs to justice and prevents these dangerous crossings.

This uplift builds on the Government’s “record breaking” increase in disruptions to criminal smuggling activity, including arrests, convictions and seizures, which have risen by nearly 50% in the year ending March 2026.

Since the General Election, nearly 70,000 illegal migrants have been removed from the UK and joint work with the French authorities has prevented over 46,000 attempted Channel crossings.