Counter-terrorism powers are to be used to stop foreign offenders coming to Britain after new evidence showing a quarter of organised criminals in London are from overseas.
The move will see exclusion orders, which are already used to keep extremists, rapists and other “undesirables” out of the country, deployed against crime bosses and their associates.
Countries outside the EU which will be targeted include Albania, which is regarded as a key source of organised criminality such as people trafficking, prostitution and drug smuggling.
Nigeria and other West African countries are also expected to be included in the campaign, as well as Far Eastern nations like Vietnam and China.
Travel to Britain by criminals from Romania, Bulgaria and Poland will also be blocked using special provisions allowing the EU’s principle of free movement to be overridden.
The decision to step up efforts to stop crime gangs coming to this country follows a confidential analysis by the Home Office and other law enforcement organisations, including the National Crime Agency.
It has found that around 25 per cent of organised crime in London is carried out by foreign offenders in a statistic described as “very striking” by one senior official. He said: “Our counter-terrorism strategy is to go upstream to stop people coming here because it’s much harder dealing with them when they are here.
“But we haven’t had a strategy for stopping foreign criminals. That’s what we want to change.” As well as preventing offending in this country, the new policy has been prompted by concern about the time and expense required to remove foreign criminals once they are here. Some manage to avoid deportation by using human rights laws.
One obstacle to blocking entry is the absence of accurate criminal records in some overseas countries.
Home Office and law enforcement staff here plan to address that byseeking better intelligence links with key target countries. Other assistance to improve the information on serious criminals living overseas will also be provided.
Immigration laws enacted in Parliament allow citizens of the European Economic Area — which covers EU states plus other countries such as Switzerland — to be excluded from the UK if the Home Secretary decides there are “public security”, health or other “public policy” grounds.
Residents of non-EEA countries require visas, to which they have no automatic entitlement, making it relatively easy to block leading criminals once they are identified.
The use of exclusion to block extremists has already been expanded significantly as part of the Government’s “Prevent” counter-terrorism strategy.
A Parliamentary report in 2012 said the measures included “changes to pre-departure checks to better identify people who pose a terrorist threat” and stop them flying to the UK.
Some foreigners given British passports have had their citizenship revoked because of involvement in terrorism.
