Rob Jones says “you cannot pivot towards one threat without there being an opportunity cost”, as the National Crime Agency retrains staff to backfill its drugs teams.
Police resources have been pulled away from the fight against drugs, firearms smuggling and child sexual abuse to tackle the small boats crisis, a senior National Crime Agency (NCA) figure has told MPs. Rob Jones, the NCA’s director-general (operations), said specialists in the global drugs trade had been switched to people-smuggling cases. The agency is now training new staff to rebuild its narcotics expertise. The NCA does not directly stop crossings but works with European partners to target the gangs behind them.
‘Holding the line’
Mr Jones told a parliamentary inquiry: “We have prioritised small boats. Specialists who understand smuggling and global networks and are experts in drugs are now tackling small boats. We are backfilling and developing other people to ensure we retain the level of expertise we need to tackle drugs.”
He added: “You cannot pivot towards one threat without there being an opportunity cost or consequence. We are holding the line, but this is challenging. The national security threat, the National Crime Agency’s remit around a range of threats, from child sexual abuse through to organised immigration crime and drugs and firearms – none of that has gone away. We are pursuing that concurrently while we get after this.”
The evidence does not say how many specialists were reassigned, how many drugs investigations were delayed or closed, or whether seizures or prosecutions have fallen as a result. The NCA has acknowledged competing pressures but not shown that drug, firearms or child abuse offending has risen as a consequence.
An NCA spokesman said: “Tackling organised immigration crime is a top priority for the NCA, and we are putting more resource behind it than ever before. Through the Border Security Command, the NCA has received funding specifically to strengthen the response to the small boats threat. This investment enables the NCA to deploy additional resources, expand operational and investigative activity, enhance intelligence and specialist capabilities, invest in technology, and deepen cooperation with international partners.”
The high street link
Mr Jones warned that disorder on the high street was feeding the problem, because shops run by criminal gangs give work to people in the UK illegally and so encourage others to cross. “Criminal finance, cash-based economy, the grey economy and the high street – all those things are relevant to illegal migration, because you do not want someone to think that they are going to come work for cash in a vape shop in the UK,” he said.
The UK is to launch a publicity campaign overseas to persuade would-be illegal migrants that they will not be able to “melt away” in British society. Border Force is recruiting ambassadors and high commissioners in countries in the Horn of Africa to spread the message that illegal migrants are vulnerable to exploitation. Officials have revealed that almost 4,000 migrants are in camps on the French coast waiting to cross, which the source presents as a sign that efforts may be working.
What the figures show
Border Security Command head Duncan Capps gave the Home Affairs Committee on 21 October, as recorded in the research notes:
- Crossings are down about 43%, with fewer than 21,000 migrants by 21 October against just under 37,000 at the same point in 2025. Boat arrivals fell from 600 to 305, about 49.8%.
- The command is directing £290m through government bodies this year, including the NCA and the Crown Prosecution Service. It brings together almost 3,000 staff. Mr Capps said it had not completed its first full evaluation of which measures offer best value.
- French authorities have prevented about 60% of attempted departure events this year, which is not the same as 60% of people.
- Home Office provisional figures show no arrivals between 16 and 22 October.
- Gangs charge €1,000 to €2,000 a crossing and pay £14,000 or more per boat, according to Mr Jones. Average occupancy has risen to about 69 people.
- Three larger boats have left from the Normandy beaches, a route of almost 60 nautical miles that Mr Capps called a major safety concern as winter approaches.
- Fewer than 7,000 small-boat arrivals since 2018, about 5%, have been returned. Both officials backed exploring access to the EU’s Eurodac fingerprint database. That was a view expressed at the hearing, not an agreement.
The NCA says it has seized more than 1,600 boats or engines since late 2023, taken down more than 40,000 smuggling-linked posts, pages or accounts, and seen immigration-crime arrests rise more than 55% in the year to April 2026. In March, officers carried out raids across western Germany, seizing boats, engines and equipment. A further operation on 21 May seized more than 30 boats, 20 engines, 360 pumps and 9,000 life jackets, enough to carry more than 2,000 people, which is a capacity estimate and not proof of arranged crossings. Home Office statistics show 3,900 recorded organised immigration crime disruptions in the year to June 2026, up 48%. A disruption is not necessarily an arrest or conviction.
