Elena SMIRNOVA

Russia

1981-05-01

Female

Ryazan Oblast, Russia

The Secretary of State considers there are reasonable grounds to suspect that ELENA SMIRNOVA is an involved person under the Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025 as she is or has been involved in a relevant activity, namely trafficking in persons. Specifically, she engaged in the recruitment of Cuban nationals using deception for the purposes of exploitation. Using social media and other forms of communication, she advertised well paid civilian jobs within Russia but, upon the recruits’ arrival in Russia, they were forced to fight against their will in Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. The recruits faced menaces including verbal abuse, threats and imprisonment.

UK

Asset freeze, Travel Ban, Director Disqualification Sanction

2026-05-05

UK

The Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025

UK horizontal

Human Rights

Asset freeze and making available provisions, Travel bans

The global irregular migration and trafficking in persons sanctions (GIM) regime was established on 23 July 2025 via the Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025. The primary legislation underpinning the Regulations is the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. The sanctions regime allows the UK government to impose sanctions to tackle people-smuggling, trafficking in persons and the instrumentalisation of migration for the purpose of destabilisation around the world. The regime is not intended to target individual countries or individual migrants. Rather, it is intended to target those that exploit some of the most vulnerable in society, putting lives at risk for their own gain and profiting from the dangerous smuggling and trafficking of innocent people. The measures which can be imposed under the GIM sanctions regime are travel bans, asset freezes, and director disqualifications.