Jamal’s case is not an isolated one. Our investigation has identified more than 20 further smugglers living in the UK. Law enforcement officials in Europe have confirmed 15 of these cases, including some convictions handed down by courts in France, Germany and Belgium.
We learned of a man convicted in France who now lives in Manchester and sells used cars and is believed to still be involved in people smuggling.
Another man, also convicted in French, lives in Blackpool. He has claimed asylum under a false name and boasts on social media that he has been given permission to stay.
Following Brexit, the UK no longer has data-sharing agreements with many EU countries, making it difficult to check the criminal and immigration backgrounds of asylum seekers, according to Lucy Morton of the Immigration Services Union.
“If we could share databases with at least our closest neighbors, say Germany, Belgium, Holland and France, then, yes, we would know that they have convictions for human smuggling,” she said.
Asylum seekers are fingerprinted on arrival in the UK and checked against UK police databases, but this does not necessarily indicate a conviction in another country.
The Home Office told us: “All asylum seekers are subject to mandatory security checks to confirm their identity for the purposes of immigration, security and criminal checks.”
This point was also noted in November last year.external Border Security Minister Alex Norris added that to protect the integrity of screening processes, details of the screenings “are not publicly disclosed.”
The Home Office further stated that the UK has “a number of agreements with countries which allow the sharing of criminal record information” and that immigration enforcement action is now at its highest level in history, with arrests for illegal work up by 83%.