The 38-year-old, who claims to be Iraqi, is suspected of facilitating illegal immigration from Turkey, advertising people smuggling services on social media.
A man has been arrested on Sunday on suspicion of facilitating small boat crossings, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
The 38-year-old man, who claims to be an Iraqi national, was detained in England early on Sunday at an address in the Stefano Road area of Preston, from where NCA officers also seized phones and documents, the agency said.
The arrest is part of NCA’s investigation into two small boat crossings made from France to the UK in November and December 2023.
The man is suspected of facilitating illegal immigration from Turkey to the UK, advertising people smuggling services on social media, according to the NCA.
NCA Senior Investigating Officer Al Mullen said the arrest “marks a significant point in an international investigation into organised immigration crime.
“Tackling this threat is a priority for the NCA, we have seen only in recent weeks how dangerous these crossings are.”
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“We are determined to do all we can, working with partners in the UK, Europe and beyond, to target, disrupt, and dismantle the criminals organising them.”
Most illegal immigrants detected in the UK in recent years came on flimsy boats across the English Channel from France.
Since records began in 2018, around 122,855 people have successfully made the journey, based on figures published by the Home Office, but dozens of others have died in the Channel.
On April 23, five people including a child died while attempting to make the journey. It came hours after a bill was passed on the safety of Rwanda for asylum seekers.
Since the bill was passed, 2,268 illegal immigrants arrived in the UK on 44 boats, according to provisional figures released by the Home Office. On Wednesday, 711 people successfully made the journey, the highest number this year, 255 people came on Saturday after a two-day pause in the channel.
In the past week, the Home Office has also begun publishing the number of people who were prevented from leaving France or reaching the UK.
Between April 29 and May 4, 759 crossings have been prevented. During the same period, 1,366 people have made it to the UK.
After the Rwanda bill became law, the government sent a failed asylum seeker to the East African country in a separate voluntary scheme, but it’s yet to start shipping out those whose cases are deemed inadmissible because they arrived illegally from a safe third country, such as France, on or after March 7, 2023.
Ministers are hoping the deportation policy would act as a deterrent to channel crossings, although Labour, which could enter government before the end of the year, has indicated it will ditch the scheme.
Although the number of deportees is technically uncapped, Labour has argued only a small number can practically be removed, diminishing the deterring effect, and some Tories have previously argued deportations would still be subject to legal challenges.
On Sunday, Yolande Makolo, a spokeswoman for Rwanda, rejected claims that Kigali is only prepared to take an initial group of 200 people, but declined to specify the number of people it will take in a given year.
Asked on the BBC’s “Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg” programme if Rwanda would be able to process tens of thousands of migrants as part of the deal, Ms. Makolo said: “We will be able to welcome the migrants that the UK sends over the lifetime of this partnership.
“What I cannot tell you is how many thousands we are taking in the first year or the second year. This will depend on very many factors that are being worked out right now.”
She had earlier claimed there was a “misconception” that Rwanda was only prepared to take 200 initial migrants, telling the BBC: “Journalists have been visiting the initial accommodation that we have secured since the beginning of the partnership. This is Hope Hostel.
“That particular facility is able to take up to 200 people.
“However, we have already started initial discussions with other facilities around Kigali and further afield and these will be firmed up and signed once we know how many migrants are coming and when they are coming.
“So it has never been the case that we can only take 200 initially, that has been a misconception.”
PA Media contributed to this report.
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