Record number of NCA officers deployed to tackle people smugglers

More National Crime Agency officers are being deployed to crack down on people smuggling than ever before, as the government restores order and control to UK borders. 

The Home Secretary, who visited the NCA's headquarters in Stratford, has announced that there are now nearly 800 officers in post, up from 376 officers at the start of 2025. The dedicated NCA officers are backed by enhanced capabilities and by additional intelligence officers who play a strong role in increasing our ability to go after the smuggling gangs. 

This means hundreds more specialist officers are tracking down, detaining and bringing the criminal gangs behind small boat crossings and wider organised immigration crime to justice. 

These officers, working with international partners, have seized 1,109 small boats or engines since the election. Specialist officers assess that this is having a significant impact on smugglers' boat and engine supply, making it more difficult and costlier for the gangs to source equipment.

Had this equipment made its way into the hands of the criminal smuggling gangs, it could have facilitated over 72,000 migrant crossings. 

The announcement comes as the Prime Minister visited the joint command room at Dover's Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre to see the operation guarding the Channel at first hand.  

He met officers from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, National Crime Agency and the Border Security Command, who all work side by side to track movements across the Dover Strait around the clock. The Prime Minister saw how surveillance drones capable of staying airborne for up to 16 hours are used to detect small boat activity and direct officers onto the gangs behind it. Just last year, the NCA was involved in almost 300 arrests to disrupt gangs bringing migrants to the UK illegally. 

Investment for the new officers comes as part of the over £280 million funding for the Border Security Command.  

The uplift comes as action to tackle and dismantle the smuggling gangs is at record levels. People smuggler related arrests involving the NCA have surged by 55% in the last year, while overall organised immigration crime arrests are up 74% compared to the previous year - all part of the biggest crackdown on immigration crime to date. 

Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood said:  

We have more than doubled the number of NCA officers working on immigration crime to tackle the gangs who profit from illegal small boat crossings.  

We have seized over a thousand boats and engines, arrested thousands of criminals, and stopped tens of thousands of attempted crossings.  

There is more to be done, but this government is restoring control at our border.

NCA Director General of Operations, Rob Jones, said:  

We have made smuggling gangs a top priority for the NCA, using this uplift to deliver more arrests, more seizures and more disruption to the ruthless people smugglers behind this trade. 

This is a global issue and the NCA has unique capabilities at home and abroad which we are now using at scale. With the help of partners nationally and internationally, we are making significant headway in combatting this threat, from removing smugglers' social media adverts to gathering intelligence, making arrests and seizing small boats equipment. 

Our message to the gangs is clear moving people in small boats and supplying equipment gets riskier for you by the day, and we will not stop in our pursuit of you, wherever you are and wherever you operate.

This follows an operation which seized 25 small boats and engines in Felixstowe, preventing up to 2,000 potential migrant crossings. 

The new endangerment offence, passed in the government's Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, has now led to sentences for 10 small boat pilots, with combined terms of nearly 20 years behind bars, all in just two months. This is the newest tool in the government's arsenal as it brings smuggling gangs to justice and prevents these dangerous crossings. 

This uplift builds on this government's record breaking increase in disruptions to criminal smuggling activity, including arrests, convictions, and seizures, which have risen by nearly 50% in the year ending March 2026. 

Since the election, nearly 70,000 illegal migrants have been removed from the UK and joint work with the French has stopped over 46,000 attempted Channel crossings.