(AFP) The UK’s National Crime Agency announced Wednesday it had arrested the suspected leader of an international criminal operation supplying small boats to people smugglers taking migrants across the Channel.
The numbers of migrants crossing the busy shipping lane from northern France [are] at record levels, prompting a UK crackdown, including controversial proposals to send those arriving to Rwanda.
The NCA said it had arrested “alleged small boats kingpin” Hewa Rahimpur, originally from Iran, at his workplace in east London, following a joint operation by UK and Belgian law enforcement agencies.
It said Rahimpur, 29, was wanted in Belgium on suspicion of being the leading figure in a network that prosecutors there say is involved in “supplying significant numbers of small boats to people smugglers.”
