UK will host summit on people smuggling

THE Government is to host the first international summit in the UK on how to tackle people-smuggling gangs.

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Representatives from 40 countries will meet in London today and tomorrow to discuss international co-operation, supply routes, criminal finances and online adverts for dangerous journeys.

Small boat journeys across the English Channel are part of a wider problem of organised immigration crime.

More than 8,000 adverts on social media were taken down last year where smugglers were promoting crossings and 600 engines were seized and hundreds of people arrested for facilitating journeys.

Law enforcement agencies trying to break smugglers' business models are believed to have forced up the cost for engines and boats to £14,000 in a bid to make it unsustainable to carry on.