Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says the government's new Border Security Command, led by former police chief Martin Hewitt, is gearing up to tackle small boat crossings. Report by Alibhaiz. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00We've had over the summer a 20% reduction compared to last summer in boat crossings,
00:05but that is no comfort when we've still got lives being lost and criminal gangs making a fortune
00:11from undermining the border security and organising these dangerous boat crossings.
00:16That's why we're gearing up the new Border Security Command to go after these gangs
00:21and to substantially increase the law enforcement work with European colleagues too.
00:26We need to work with countries right across Europe to prevent these dangerous boat crossings
00:32and to go after the criminal gangs who frankly have been getting away with it for too long.
00:37Italy has already done significant work to tackle smuggler and trafficking gangs
00:43and also to do prevention work with other countries to prevent boats setting off in
00:48the first place and they've seen a 60% reduction in boats crossing the Mediterranean.