
Bodies of two boys, both 16, found on tracks near Poynton station
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Home Office announces ‘nationwide blitz' on asylum seekers taking jobs
The Home Office has announced what it is calling a 'nationwide blitz' on asylum seekers who take jobs, after recent political controversy about people in asylum hotels working as food takeaway delivery riders. In a statement, which gave few specifics, the Home Office pledged to begin 'a major operation to disrupt this type of criminality' based around enforcement teams focusing on the gig economy, particularly on delivery riders. 'Strategic, intel-driven activity will bring together officers across the UK and place an increased focus on migrants suspected of working illegally whilst in taxpayer funded accommodation or receiving financial support,' the statement said. It follows media stories about evidence that people who are living in hotels waiting for their asylum claims to be processed, and who are banned from working, have been using the log-ins of people with official migration status to work for companies such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats. Ten days ago the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, posted a much-shared social media video of him visiting an asylum hotel in London and finding bikes laden with bags from the various food delivery companies packed together in an outside courtyard. On Monday, Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat promised to increase the use of facial verification checks for riders after a hastily arranged meeting with Home Office ministers. The Home Office statement said anyone caught working could lose their accommodation or support payments, and that businesses found to be employing someone not entitled to work could face fines of up to £60,000 per worker, as well as director disqualifications or prison terms. It said there had already been an increase in enforcement and arrests connected to illegal working in the year since Labour took power. Asylum and immigration is seen by ministers as an area of political vulnerability, one being exploited by Reform UK and the Conservatives. While a huge backlog of unprocessed asylum claims is being gradually reduced, the number of asylum seekers arriving on small boats across the Channel has risen. Keir Starmer is to discuss the issue with Emmanuel Macron when the French president visits the UK next week, with the possibility of a 'one in, one out' deal in which the UK could return those on small boats to France in exchange for accepting asylum seekers with links to Britain via more formal means. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said the government was increasing action to combat the 'pull factor' of such work. However, she said: 'There is no single solution to the problem of illegal migration. That's why we've signed landmark agreements with international partners to dismantle gangs and made significant arrests of notorious people smugglers.' Philp said: 'It shouldn't take a visit to an asylum hotel by me as shadow home secretary to shame the government into action. Illegal working by asylum seekers – most of whom also entered the country illegally – is happening from the very hotels Yvette Cooper is using our money to run. 'The government could easily stop it. I saw Deliveroo and other bikes parked in the hotel's own compound - yet all the security guard cared about was me filming.'


Sky News
3 hours ago
- Sky News
How Britain's most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective's talk
Britain's most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch. Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink's-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials. Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink's-Mat Gold in 2019, said: "I go outside and they say 'he's here' and I say 'who's here' and they say that table over there in the corner, that's Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head." Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink's-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold. After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron. "They said what are we going to do?" said Mr Brown. "I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives." Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink's-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery. Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery. He said: "He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it." The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole. Mr Brown, 86, said: "I went over to him and said 'thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in', but I don't believe you've turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer. "And he said 'I want to make sure you don't say I've been dealing drugs' and I said 'I've never said that Kenny'." The retired detective told Noye he wasn't going to change his presentation just because he was there. "He said 'mate, I wouldn't expect you to and I'll come up [on stage] if you want me to'. "Can you think how he's turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that." The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I'd been told about the meeting. I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink's-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983. "It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better," said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean. He said he chatted to one of the show's writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more. "They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I'm just very sad that that is what people will believe. "And I couldn't work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops." He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.


Times
4 hours ago
- Times
Brother and sister jailed over insider trading
A brother and sister have been sentenced to six and five years in jail respectively for insider trading and money laundering after they used his position as a Janus Henderson analyst to break the law. Redinel Korfuzi, 38, a former research analyst at the asset management firm, was accused of using confidential information to which he had access in his City job to trade using accounts held by his sister Oerta Korfuzi, 36, and two other people. Last month, the Albanian siblings were convicted of conspiracy to commit insider dealing and money laundering between December 2019 and March 2021. The Financial Conduct Authority, which prosecuted the case, said the pair had used Korfuzi's access to inside information to 'rig the system to satisfy their greed'. Sentencing them on Friday at Southwark crown court, Judge Alexander Milne said the case 'has elements akin to a Greek tragedy where an individual of some standing is brought crashing down by a fatal flaw . . . You both thought of yourselves as being too clever to be caught out.' The Korfuzis used confidential information on 13 companies including Daimler, Jet2 and THG to make close to £1 million. The insider trading took place at the London flat the siblings shared, taking advantage of working from home after pandemic lockdowns began in March 2020 to co-ordinate the scheme. They used 'short' trades, the term for betting on a share price falling, investing after Korfuzi had obtained inside information such as emails from companies gauging investor interest on plans to raise equity or to sell large blocks of shares owned by existing shareholders, the City regulator said. Korfuzi traded in the shares of those companies on a number of accounts, including those operated by his sister. The FCA detected suspicious activity and the siblings were arrested in March 2021. FCA investigators also uncovered a separate international money laundering operation. It said prosecutors were unable to identify the source of the crime from which the cash derived but the laundering involved deposits made into accounts controlled or operated by the siblings from the UK to Albania. Milne said the scam was 'not a victimless fraud' as insider trading 'diminishes public trust in the integrity of the market'. Two other defendants, Korfuzi's personal trainer Rogerio de Aquino and de Aquino's partner Dema Almeziad, whose accounts were used to execute trades, were cleared of all charges at the trial last month. Korfuzi persuaded the couple to open trading accounts when the personal trainer's business was struggling during the Covid-19 crisis. After they were acquitted last month, Almeziad's lawyer Roger Sahota said: 'There was no evidence that Ms Almeziad knew anything about insider dealing and it is wrong to expect ordinary people to understand or spot complex financial conduct that even professionals struggle with.' Janus Henderson, which manages roughly $380 billion in assets, was not involved in the criminal case or accused of any wrongdoing. The successful prosecution of the Korfuzis follows other positive results for the FCA in court recently, including the Upper Tribunal upholding its ban on Jes Staley, the former Barclays boss.