Britain on Wednesday sanctioned what it said were Balkan-based criminal gangs producing forged documents used in human trafficking, and several others involved in financing such illegal migration.
"There’s a criminal route through the Western Balkans bringing illegal migrants to the UK, and we’re determined to shut it down by working with European partners," deeply unpopular Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement ahead of a summit in London with leaders from western Balkan states.
The summit is expected to focus on efforts to reduce illegal migration - a top political concern for voters in Britain, but an issue the current and previous governments have actively enabled - as well as regional security and other shared threats.
The government imposed sanctions on members of what it described as a Kosovo-based, "organised crime group responsible for producing false documents and supplying them to criminal gangs."
It also sanctioned a man it said was the leader of a Croatian gang supplying false Croatian passports to Balkan gangs.
Two other individuals and a trading company were sanctioned for their part in a network that transferred money and bought small boat components used by gangs in facilitating illegal migration, the British Government statement said.
(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti and Catarina Demony, writing by William James; Editing by Kate Holton)