The National Crime Agency led a record year of takedowns of social media accounts linked to organised immigration crime during 2025.

The NCA proactively scans social media, searching for material and flagging it to platforms as potentially criminal in nature where appropriate. This activity triggered the removal of almost 10,700 accounts, pages and posts during the 12 months to the end of December 2025.

This is up almost a third on the 8,000 removed as a result of NCA checks in 2024, and means more than 27,000 have been taken down in total since the NCA started working with social media companies towards the end of 2021.

In the last two years more than 90 per cent of all accounts referred to platforms by the NCA have been removed.

Some of the accounts picked up by monitoring include those advertising sham marriage services, false identity documents, or help with fraudulent asylum claims.

Others brazenly advertise boat crossings to the UK from France, claiming that passengers will be transported in a “jet boat”, or crossings in the back of lorries, selling them as “taxi service”. Posts advertising Mediterranean crossings were also taken down.

Posts have been identified using a range of different languages, including English, French, Turkish, Arabic, Albanian, Vietnamese, Farsi, Dari, Sorani Kurdish and Pashto.

NCA analysis of the adverts suggests that the majority are likely posted by low and mid-ranking criminal network members, primarily located in source and transit countries.

Those posting content generally manage a large number of accounts to increase their reach and to provide contingency in case of takedowns, using social media as an initial gateway to ‘customers’ who are then drawn on to messaging apps.

Some are also involved in directly facilitating channel crossings in boats and HGVs, with footage of attempts being used to further advertise smugglers’ successes.

Investigators have also noticed an increase in the use of emojis, text over video and coded language in an effort to avoid detection.

Mike Hulett, head of the NCA’s Online Communication Centre, said: “Targeting the social media offering of these criminal networks is just one way we are looking to disrupt their business models, and we are expanding how we do that all the time.

“It also provides us with crucial intelligence leads to identify criminals, and a number of our current investigations have started off this way.

“We continue to work closely with the social media companies to remove this material and we have positive dialogue with them. We are clear though that more needs to be done to stop platforms being used to advertise criminal services.

“Tackling organised immigration crime remains a top priority for the NCA, and working with partners we are determined to do all we can to target, disrupt and dismantle their activities, wherever they operate.”

Intelligence from the NCA’s Online Communication Centre has contributed to a number of investigations throughout 2025, including one which saw a man detained by NCA investigators in September for allegedly offering crossings from Libya to Italy on Facebook, and three arrests in December of individuals accused of offering fraudulent visas and illegal entry into the UK in posts on TikTok. Investigations are continuing.

UK-sourced intelligence has also been passed on to a number of overseas partners, leading to investigations there.

The new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act, which became law in December and comes into force in early 2026, will make it an offence to create material for publication online which promotes services facilitating a breach of UK immigration law.

Mike Tapp, Minister for Migration and Citizenship, said: “My message to people smugglers hiding behind a screen: we are coming after you.

“Action is at record levels with more than 10,000 smuggling accounts, pages and posts taken down in the last year alone, thanks to the dedication of our National Crime Agency officers.

“We are closing down their reach, using intelligence to target criminal networks and backing this with a new law making it illegal to create or post adverts for smuggling services.”

The social media action plan was implemented by the NCA, Home Office and four major social media companies in late 2021 to bring greater collaboration against those crime groups using social media to recruit, communicate and advertise a range of illegal services.

It sees a greater shared understanding of the threat from organised immigration crime between social media companies and the NCA, as well as a more streamlined, two-way system of communication.