Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps Border Security Command has taken with the banking sector to (a) prevent illicit finance and (b) reduce the profits of organised crime groups facilitating irregular migration.

We created the Border Security Command which will apply public-private partnerships to Organised Immigration Crime (OIC) for the first time, including with the UK’s financial sector and financial institutions, to prevent the flow of illicit finance and degrade the profits of OCGs facilitating irregular migration. This will build on existing activity with banking institutions across the UK such as suspicious activity reports (SAR) which are routinely sent from UK banks to the National Crime Agency. All regulated financial institutions must make a SAR if they know or suspect, or have reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting, that a person is engaged in money laundering or terrorist financing. It is a criminal offence if an institution does not report their knowledge, suspicion or reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting.

OIC remains a global threat, with no respect for national boundaries. Tackling it requires an international response, with governments and international organisations working together to develop strategic solutions and collaborative operations, across the whole irregular migration route, from source to destination countries. As such, the Border Security Command is working in partnership with like-minded international partners such as Italy, under the UK-Italy Illicit Finance Taskforce. The UK and Italy are global leaders in disrupting economic crime and under the taskforce both nations will be sharing law enforcement strategies, policy, and expertise to maximise our disruptive effect on financial flows into the UK, Italy and across Europe.

In addition, our new irregular migration sanctions regime - a world first - will be a valuable additional capability to bring to bear against people smugglers.