“There is a criminal route through the Western Balkans that brings illegal migrants to the United Kingdom, and we are determined to stop it through cooperation with European partners,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement on the occasion of a summit in London with the leaders of the Western Balkan countries.
Within the so-called of the Berlin Process, the countries of the Western Balkans and the leaders of part of the EU countries are participating in the British capital, among them Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.
The summit is expected to focus on efforts to reduce illegal migration – a top political issue for British voters – as well as regional security and other shared threats.
The British government imposed sanctions on members of what it described as a criminal group from Kosovo “responsible for creating false documents that were delivered to criminal gangs”.
It is about the Krasniqi network, a criminal gang based in Kosovo, which ran a sophisticated laboratory for forgery and the production of false documents, according to a statement from the British government.
It is added that Nusret Seferović, who heads a Croatian group that supplied Balkan gangs with fake Croatian passports to facilitate their entry into European countries, was also sanctioned.
“Seferović identified Croatian citizens who did not collect their documents, and then used their identities to obtain fake passports. These passports were then sold to organized criminal groups, including the Škaljari and Kavač gangs,” which have already been sanctioned, the statement said.
Two other people and a company were sanctioned for their involvement in a network that transferred money and bought parts for small boats used by gangs for illegal migration.
The sanctions represent the latest step by the UK government and its partners in cracking down on criminal networks that encourage illegal entry into the UK. Those actions, according to data from London, led to a drop in the number of migrants recorded by Frontex in transit through the Western Balkans – from more than 140,000 in 2022 to slightly more than 21,000 in 2024.
(Vijesti.ba)
