Keir Starmer to deploy drones as part of £75 million funding package to help UK officials detain migrant smugglers

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the Labour Party will be introducing a fresh £75 million funding package geared towards tackling the influx of illegal migrants Britain receives through the English Channel via human smugglers.

The package, which Starmer announced at Interpol’s annual general assembly in Glasgow on Monday, will cover the deployment of maritime drones over the Channel that Britain’s new Border Security Command (BSC) can use to monitor smuggling activity in real-time, per The Times.

Starmer said that it was his “personal mission to smash the people-smuggling gangs,” adding, “we are going to treat people smugglers like terrorists – we are taking our approach to counter terrorism, which we know works, and applying it to the gangs. We have got to combine resources, share intelligence and tactics, and tackle the problem upstream, working together to shut down the smuggling routes.”

He had stated that the additional £75 million of funding for the Border Security Command would end “the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies.”

The total £150 million BSC funding will cover an additional 300 staff, 100 specialist investigators and intelligence officers for the National Crime Agency, new advanced data technology for the NCA, a new specialist intelligence unit, and a boost to the Crown Prosecution Service’s ability to bring charges quickly in international cases, all with the focus being on cracking down on migrant smuggling.

Home Office sources have disclosed that new specialist operational equipment will also be covered in the additional funding, including advanced maritime drones, covert audio and video equipment, and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras.

Former immigration chief Kevin Saunders is doubtful, however, that these additional efforts to deter illegal migrants will be “feasible.”

He stated to the BBC that the UK would only be able to prosecute and jail people smugglers within the country “and the majority of people smugglers are actually based in the Middle East and Turkey.”

Starmer had scrapped his predecessor, Conservative PM Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan which was falling apart as the current PM took office in July.

Over 5,400 illegal migrants crossed the Channel in small dinghies in October, which is reportedly the highest monthly figure in 2 years. This year, over 27,500 have undergone the dangerous and often fatal crossing.

This Story originally came from humanevents.com

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zerohedge
Economics , News , Politics , Science
November 21, 2024
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Chinese Agent Who Tried To Bribe IRS Against Shen Yun Sentenced To 20 Months in Prison

Authored by Eva Fu and Cara Ding via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Chinese agent who tried to bribe the IRS and manipulate the agency into advancing Beijing’s transnational repression of a U.S. nonprofit has received a 20-month prison sentence.

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in White Plains on Jov. 19, 2024. Cara Ding/The Epoch Times

U.S. citizen John Chen, 72, was a principal actor in a $50,000 bribery scheme under the direction of a Chinese intelligence official to revoke the nonprofit status of New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts.

Shen Yun has long been on the Chinese regime’s target list. Founded in 2006, the company tours around the world to display the ancient Chinese culture that prevailed before the communist takeover of China, while highlighting the human rights abuses under the regime’s rule. It has often drawn attention to the ongoing persecution of the meditation group Falun Gong.

Chen pleaded guilty in July after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors. He has spent the 16 months since his arrest in May 2023 in detention, and he will spend another four months in federal custody.

He will also forfeit $50,000 and face three years of supervised release after serving the full prison term.

For several months in 2023, Chen had been trying to move a fraudulent whistleblower complaint to help the Chinese Communist Party “topple” Falun Gong, according to court documents. Prosecutors said the whistleblower complaint was “facially deficient” and invoked propaganda rhetoric typical of Chinese authorities.

During those conversations, Chen emphasized that Chinese leadership was “very generous” in financial support for the plan, according to the court filing.

“After this-this-this thing is done,” the court document quoted Chen as saying, “reward for work will surely be given at that time.”

Chen and another co-conspirator, Lin Feng, who served 16 months of detention, paid $5,000 cash bribes to an undercover agent posing as an IRS agent. They promised an additional $50,000 for opening an investigation along with 60 percent of any awards from the complaint if it went through.

It was “a significant bribe,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Lockard said at the sentencing hearing. He noted that the undercover officer didn’t specify an amount.

*John Chen (L) poses for a photo at an event celebrating the 70th anniversary of Chinese communist rule in Beijing in 2019. Department of Justice*

“The defendant chose the amount,” he said.

Both Chen and Lin had traveled to Orange County in upstate New York, where Shen Yun is based, to surveil Falun Gong practitioners there, according to a court filing.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the sentencing was a reminder that “the U.S. justice system will hold accountable those who attempt to engage in malicious transnational repression on American soil.”

“John Chen aligned himself with the PRC government and its goals to harass and intimidate the Falun Gong, a long-standing target of PRC repression. In doing so, Chen boldly attempted to bribe an individual he believed to be an IRS agent to corrupt the administration of the U.S. tax code and pervert the IRS whistleblower program,” he said in a statement on Nov. 19. “This Office will not tolerate efforts like this to repress free speech by targeting critics of the PRC in the United States.”

*U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams addresses the media in New York City on Nov. 2, 2023. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images*

Both Chen’s son and his lawyer declined to comment after walking out of the courtroom.

While Chen’s son, three China-based siblings, two ex-wives, and fiancée have all written letters asking for leniency and describing him as a man who loves the United States, the prosecutors disagreed.

In a Nov. 5 memo, they argued that a 30-month prison sentence—the longest under the sentencing guideline—would be appropriate because of the seriousness of the case and the need to deter criminal conduct, “particularly in cases of a foreign power’s repression of a disfavored group within the borders of the United States.”

“The defendant has no mitigating motives or external factors justifying his offense,” the prosecutors wrote, noting that Chen was “not motivated by poverty” and that there was no evidence of Chinese officials’ pressure.

*The curtain call for Shen Yun Performing Arts at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City on Jan 11, 2015. Larry Dai/Epoch Times*

Prosecutors noted that Chen had repeatedly referred to Chinese officials as his “friends” and that during the bribery scheme, he “called them ‘blood brothers,’ and described how ‘we’—Chen and his PRC Government friends—‘started this fight’ against the founder of the Falun Gong ‘twenty, thirty years ago.’”

The memo displayed photos obtained from Chen’s electronic devices and online accounts showing him at a major military parade in Beijing celebrating the 70th anniversary of Chinese communist rule in 2019. Another photo showed Chen shaking hands with communist leader Xi Jinping.

“Chen was extraordinarily proud of his history with the PRC Government and, in particular, his meeting with Xi,” the memo states, citing a recorded call in which he bragged that he had “climbed, climbed, climbed to this position,” and that “Uncle Xi” met him “three times in 10 years.”

Chen had also featured those three meetings, along with a photo, in a 2020 digital résumé, according to the memo.

Chen was aligned with the Chinese authorities in suppressing Falun Gong and “acted as a full-fledged and enthusiastic participant in the crimes,” the prosecutors said.

“It was his fight,” Lockard said at the sentencing hearing, adding that Chen had tried to use the freedoms he enjoyed in the United States to undermine the country.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/21/2024 – 23:25

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Keir Starmer to deploy drones as part of £75 million funding package to help UK officials detain migrant smugglers

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