Prime minister Keir Starmer promised to “smash the gangs” behind irregular migration when he came to power last year, but in the first six months of 2025 the number of migrants coming across the Channel has jumped nearly 50% to 20,000 from the same period last year.

The new sanctions regime, first outlined in January, will target those who supply and finance small boats, forge fake documents and funnel cash through an underground payment system known as Hawala, the government said.

“From Europe to Asia we are taking the fight to the people-smugglers who enable irregular migration, targeting them wherever they are in the world and making them pay for their actions,” foreign minister David Lammy said in a statement.

The sanctions are designed to disrupt the flow of money by freezing property and bank accounts, the government said.

It named seven Iraqi-linked individuals it said were involved in people-smuggling, as well as eight people from the Balkans who supply fake passports.

Sanctions were also imposed on a company in China which advertises its small boats online explicitly for the purpose of people smuggling, and a number of people who work from Belgium and Serbia, and who were described as “gangland bosses” by Britain.