Border security officers sent to Balkans to disrupt people-smuggling networks

Shabana Mahmood greets Albana Koçiu, Albania’s minister of the interior, at the Western Balkans summit in London. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/PA

British border security officers have been deployed to the Balkans for the first time in an effort to disrupt the networks smuggling migrants into the UK.

Officers have been sent to develop new ways of working with Frontex, the EU’s border agency, to track down and arrest people-smugglers operating along key routes into western Europe.