An Afghan people smuggler claimed in an interview with the Sunday Express that he has ‘contacts’ who tip the gang off about security operations in the UK.
Intelligence officers and the police will be ordered to “relentlessly” hunt down any corrupt official helping migrant smugglers, Zia Yusuf has declared.
An Afghan people smuggler, whose network covers the whole of Europe, claimed in an interview with the Sunday Express that he has “contacts” who tip the gang off about security operations in the UK.
Haji Ajmal said there are “some people who are taking money” before menacingly adding: “They are helping us.”
Reform’s home affairs spokesman, Mr Yusuf, branded the claims an “outrage, but not surprising”.
He said: “A notorious Afghan illegal migrant smuggler has revealed he has “contacts inside” the British government tipping them off on security checks in Dover, helping them to avoid detection.
“This is an outrage, but not surprising.
“We know the Tory Labour political class have aided and abetted the invasion of Britain.
“A Reform government will immediately direct our intelligence agencies and the police to urgently investigate these claims.
“Traitors found to be aiding and abetting the invasion of Britain will be relentlessly pursued and prosecuted under the Immigration Act 1971 and the Bribery Act 2010.”
And Nigel Farage’s party has vowed to go further – amid fears smuggling gangs are ruthlessly exploiting Britain’s porous borders.
A new ‘UK Deportation Command’ will use data from banks, the Home Office, HMRC, police, DVLA and NHS to identify every illegal migrant.
They will then be offered cash to leave the UK during a six-month grace period.
Once the voluntary returns programme comes to an end, immigration enforcement teams will be ordered to carry out raids and detain them.
New laws introduced in a planned Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill will bar illegal migrants from claiming asylum, and the Home Secretary will have a legal duty to remove them.
Mr Yusuf added: “Reform will make aiding and abetting illegal entry into the UK a criminal offence, regardless of intent.
“We will call this “The Polanski Law” It’s not just people smugglers facilitating illegal entry into Britain – charities in the UK such as Care4Calais brazenly provide services for people breaking immigration law.
“Zack Polanski visited ‘charities’ in Calais last year and called for more illegal small boat migrants to be allowed into the UK.
Migrants are flooding to the UK on dinghies (Image: Getty)
“We will close this loophole in the current law by making it a ‘strict liability offence’ (intent will not need to be proven) for people to perform any act that assists or encourages illegal entry, punishable by up to 2 years in jail.
“This will stop the Labour, Tory and Green Party endorsed charity industrial complex from facilitating large scale illegal entry under the false premise of charitable action. We will secure our border.”
Afghan smuggler Haji Ajmal goaded ministers as he compared politicians to smugglers for always breaking their promises on deportations.
Ajmal, speaking from a secret location in Turkey, told the Sunday Express: “We have been hearing this for many, many years.
“There is concern about being arrested. But we have some people inside of the Government to report to us what’s happening. They give us some information.
“This is not only in the UK. There are people in the border areas, border police, they have some kind of cooperation with us. There are some people who are taking money. They are helping us.
“I can’t say how many people are in the UK. They will give us reports ‘okay, we have checkpoints’ or ‘today, we have police searching’.
“We get all this information from our contacts inside of the Government.”
Asked if the threats of a crackdown led by the National Crime Agency and European allies would put him off, Ajmal – not his real name – told the Sunday Express: “Demand is too high.
“There are a lot of people that are asking us to go to Europe. When demand is high, of course we will take the risk.
“There are a lot of people, especially from Afghanistan, who would like to come to Europe.
“They would like to go to the UK. One of the reasons people would like to go to the UK is because there are rumours, reports, among the Afghan people that there is very good hospitality from the UK, including hotels, and their families are encouraging them.
“The risk is more on the people, not us. These people are going by boats. That’s the risk.”
And the criminal who has smuggled people into and across Europe for 15 years warned Home Secretary Ms Mahmood that demand for his services is increasing.
Ajmal’s network is understood to be a series of smugglers working together across the continent, with the group very rarely meeting.
Migrants are passed from one criminal to another when they reach certain checkpoints.
He said: “If the situation in the security of countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Iran gets worse, of course, the demand is going to be high.
“The demand is increasing. People are leaving their countries. They would like to go to safer countries. This is our business.
“It depends on the security situation in the world. We will keep continuing business.”
Asked if he would make a lot of money, Ajmal admits: “Of course. But it has a lot of expenses too. It’s not like everything is coming to us.”
A government spokesperson said: “If the Express has evidence of organised immigration crime, we urge them to provide it to the authorities whose officers have doubled the number of disruptions in the last year to well over 4,000.
“We are hitting the gangs harder than ever and from every angle – securing arrests and convictions, and seizing the criminal assets and money the criminals rely on.”