National Crime Agency referrals to social media companies led to a 40 per cent increase in takedowns of accounts linked to people smuggling during 2024.
The NCA triggered the removal of more than 8,000 accounts, representing more than 90 per cent of all referrals made, during the 12 months to the end of December.
This was a significant increase on the 5,600 removed in 2023, and means more than 16,500 have been taken down in total since the NCA started working with four major social media companies just over three years ago.
Among those removed are posts falsely promoting small boat crossings from France to the UK as being via speedboat, posts offering prizes to migrants who refer a friend, accounts offering transport from Africa to southern Europe, and posts offering fake ID documents for sale.
The NCA launched its social media action plan with Meta, X (formerly known as Twitter), TikTok and YouTube in December 2021, to help build understanding of how organised criminals used their platforms to advertise illegal services and limit gangs’ ability to exploit victims and plan dangerous illegal crossings.
Since then the NCA has conducted a number of investigations targeting individuals or groups using social media to promote their services.
Among those convicted was Amanj Hasan Zada from Preston, jailed for 17 years in November 2024. Zada used video testimonials of those he’d successfully smuggled to promote himself.
Two other men, Dilshad Shamo and Ali Khdir from Caerphilly in South Wales, also used social media apps to publicise their people smuggling enterprise. They were convicted in November and await sentence.
Sophie Austin, Operations Manager at the NCA’s Online Communication Centre, said, “Social media remains a key way the organised crime groups involved in people smuggling promoting their illegal services to migrants. It is a major part of their business model.
“Once migrants are engaged they then move conversations onto encrypted messaging apps where they are hidden from law enforcement.
“Taking down these accounts disrupts the activities of those criminal networks, we are devoting more resources to doing that as it is one of a number of ways we can actively target them and make their life more difficult.”
Austin added, “We continue to work closely with social media platforms to highlight such content and contribute to the development of detection capabilities.
“As a result, our partnership with them has seen a significant increase in the number of accounts we have identified and taken down in the last year – up more than 40 per cent since the end of 2023.”
