UK team works with French to break up Channel gangs

Officers from the National Crime Agency working with French police have arrested more than 300 suspected people smugglers and broken up 52 networks in five years, the unit has told The Observer.

- John Simpson

The Joint Intelligence Cell (JIC) says the gangs were operating on French soil and that the dismantling of the groups came as a result of NCA officers working alongside their French counterparts.

The NCA said that many of the groups were involved in orchestrating small boat crossings. There is growing pressure on law enforcement to shut off the supply of rigid inflatable boats and disrupt the networks smuggling people into Europe and over the Channel.