LONDON (dpa-AFX) - UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced an additional 75 million pounds ($97 million) to boost efforts to tackle national security threat from people smuggling gangs.
This will bring the investment in the Border Security Command over the next two years to £150 million, or $194 million.
Starmer outlined major investments to smash criminal smuggling gangs and intensify international collaboration to meet the global scale of the threat at the opening of the INTERPOL General Assembly in Glasgow Monday.
In his speech, the Prime Minister set out plans to draw on his experience of bringing together agencies to tackle international terrorist and drug smuggling gangs during his time as Director of Public Prosecutions.
This major funding boost for the government's new Border Security Command will initially be directed towards a range of enforcement and intelligence activities.
They include appointing 300 staff for the new Border Security Command; recruiting 100 specialist investigators and intelligence officers for the NCA, dedicated to tackling criminals who facilitate people smuggling; and boosting collaboration with European partners to investigate and break people smuggling networks.
The Border Security Command, led by Martin Hewitt, will be provided with enhanced powers - through a new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill - to tackle organised immigration crime while providing for strong and effective border security.
'There's nothing progressive about turning a blind eye as men, women and children die in the Channel,' Starmer said in his opening speech.
'This is a vile trade that must be stamped out - wherever it thrives. So we're taking our approach to counter-terrorism - which we know works, and applying it to the gangs, with our new Border Security Command.'
'We're ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies,' he added.
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