Barges and RAF bases more expensive than hotels to house asylum seekers – watchdog

Published

1 year ago

March 20, 2024

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The government’s alternative plans for housing asylum seekers will actually cost the taxpayer millions more than the hotels they seek to replace, according to a public spending watchdog.

A report from the National Audit Office (NAO) said accommodating those waiting for asylum decisions on barges or former RAF bases would cost the Home Office £1.2bn – £46m more than using hotels.

And while £230m is expected to have been spent on developing four alternative sites by the end of March, only two have opened so far – and they were only housing around 900 people by the end of January.

As a result, performance reviews have now rated the Home Office as “red”, meaning its delivery goals appear “unachievable”.

The head of the NAO, Gareth Davies, said that while the government had “made progress” in cutting hotel numbers by 60 from the 398 being used before January, it had “incurred losses and increased risk” by “rapidly progressing its plans to establish large sites”.

He called on the Home Office to “reflect on lessons learned” and “improve coordination” with local authorities.

However, Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper called the conclusions “staggering” and accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of having “taken the Tories chaos and failure in the asylum system to a new level”.

Archbishop of Canterbury: Asylum system is broken

The report comes as the government continues to battle to get its Rwanda plan through parliament, with the aim of deterring asylum seekers from making dangerous Channel crossings to the UK – but it has received huge criticism from opposition MPs, campaigners and even the courts.

The bill will head back to the House of Lords today, but peers are expected to push for extra changes and the watering down of some of the policy before letting the legislation come into force.

Faith leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, publicly backed proposals to overhaul the “broken” asylum system in the UK.

Recommendations from the independent Commission on the Integration of Refugees include allowing migrants to work in the UK after six months of waiting for an asylum decision, and giving arrivals free English lessons from the first day they arrive.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said: “It’s widely acknowledged that our asylum system is broken – it needs rebuilding with compassion, dignity and fairness at the centre.

“This requires thoughtful, well-informed consideration which promotes collaboration and common ground, not division.”

Setbacks in alternate accomodation

The government made ending the use of hotels for asylum seekers a key pledge in 2022, estimating that the rooms were costing the taxpayer £8m a day.

Ministers claimed the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, two former RAF bases in Scampton, Lincolnshire, and Wethersfield, Essex, and ex-student accommodation in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, would cut costs – despite opposition over the suitability of the sites.

But the barge has faced a raft of setbacks – including an outbreak of Legionella in the days after it took its first asylum seekers – and, according to the NAO, the set-up costs of the RAF bases have risen from £5m each to £49m for Wethersfield and £27m for Scampton.

The watchdog’s report also said only Wethersfield and the Bibby Stockholm had begun housing people, with just 576 men placed at the former – which has a capacity of 1,700 – and 321 men at the latter – which has room for around 500 – by the end of January, though Scampton and Huddersfield should start taking people in the next two months.

Following the government’s decision to scale back the capacity at Scampton from 2,000 to 800, the NAO said the Home Office was considering reducing the maximum amount at Wethersfield too.

Elsewhere in the report, the NAO accused the Home Office of prioritising awarding contracts “quickly”, and “modifying existing contracts over fully-competitive tenders”, with “overly-ambitious accommodation timetables” leading to “increased procurement risks”.

They criticised the lack of engagement with local communities before deploying emergency planning rules so the sites could be used.

And they said there were “uncertainties” around the implementation of the Illegal Migration Act, which made it harder to predict what asylum accommodation would be needed going forward.

NAO chief Mr Davies said: “The Home Office has made progress in reducing the use of hotels for asylum accommodation. Yet the pace at which the government pursued its plans led to increased risks, and it now expects large sites to cost more than using hotel accommodation.

“The Home Office continued this programme despite repeated external and internal assessments that it could not be delivered as planned.

“Its plan to reset the large sites programme makes sense, and the Home Office should reflect on lessons learned from establishing its large sites programme at speed and improve coordination with central and local government given wider housing pressures.”

The chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Meg Hillier, criticised the Home Office for not understanding the challenges it faced in setting up large sites and “moved too quickly, incurring losses, increasing risks and upsetting local communities, and the sites are housing fewer people than planned”.

She added: “The Home Office must do better when it resets its programme and provide safe and suitable accommodation for asylum seekers at the best value for taxpayers’ money.”

And Labour’s Ms Cooper added: “The prime minister claimed that 10,000 people would be housed in these major sites to save money on costly hotels.

“That plan has failed on every level with only a fraction of that number on those sites and the costs going through the roof.

“Labour will clear the backlog, end asylum hotel use and set up a new returns and enforcement unit so those with no right to be in the UK are swiftly returned.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We have always been clear that the use of asylum hotels is unacceptable, and that’s why we acted swiftly to reduce the impact on local communities by moving asylum seekers on to barges and former military sites.

“While we must provide adequate accommodation for asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, thanks to the actions we have taken to maximise use of existing space and our work to cut small boat crossings by a third last year, the cost of hotels will fall – and we are now closing dozens of asylum hotels every month to return them to communities.

“But we have further to go, which is why we are passing the Safety of Rwanda Bill, deterring Channel crossings and get flights off to Rwanda – because it is only when people are discouraged from taking those journeys that we can end asylum hotel use for good.

“While the NAO’s figures include set up costs, it is currently better value for money for the taxpayer to continue with these sites than to use hotels.”

Politics

Everstake defends non-custodial staking as SEC weighs industry input

Published

3 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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Everstake defends non-custodial staking as SEC weighs industry input

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has held discussions with Everstake, one of the largest non-custodial staking providers globally, to explore clearer regulatory definitions around staking in blockchain networks.

The meeting, which also involved the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, comes at a time when over $193 billion in digital assets are staked across major proof-of-stake (PoS) networks.

However, despite the massive scale of participation, staking remains in a legal gray zone in the US as regulators wrestle with its classification under existing securities law.

The previous SEC administration also took enforcement actions against major players such as Kraken, Coinbase, and Consensys due to their staking services. The agency, under pro-crypto President Donald Trump, has recently dismissed these enforcement actions.

During the meeting, Everstake told the SEC that non-custodial staking should not be classified as a securities transaction. The company said that users maintain full control over their digital assets throughout the staking process and do not transfer ownership to a third party.

They argued that this makes staking a technical function, not an investment product.

“Our main assertion is that staking is not a financial instrument or security transaction, but rather a technical process, a base-layer protocol mechanism—akin to an oracle in a database—that maintains the integrity and functionality of decentralized networks,” Everstake founder Sergii Vasylchuk told Cointelegraph.

Everstake calls for regulatory clarity

In a letter submitted to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force on April 8, 2025, Everstake asked the agency to extend regulatory clarity to non-custodial staking and custodial and liquid staking models.

In the letter, which came in respond to Commissioner Hester Peirce’s call for input on regulatory treatment of blockchain services, Everstake argued that non-custodial staking should not be considered a securities offering.

It claimed that non-custodial staking, where users retain control of their tokens, does not involve the pooling of assets or the expectation of profits from managerial efforts.

In its model, Everstake said users delegate only validation rights while maintaining ownership of their digital assets. The staking rewards are algorithmically distributed by the blockchain network itself, and the firm merely provides technical infrastructure.

Non-custodial staking fails the Howey test

The letter also details why non-custodial staking fails each prong of the Howey test. Users do not make an investment of money in a common enterprise, do not expect profits from Everstake’s efforts, and are not dependent on the company’s management for financial returns.

Instead, any rewards come from network-level incentives and fluctuate with the market value of the underlying asset.

Everstake proposes specific criteria that should exempt non-custodial staking from securities classification. These include user asset control, absence of pooled funds, permissionless unstaking, and the provision of purely technical services.

It likens non-custodial staking to proof-of-work mining, which the SEC has previously ruled out as a securities transaction.

Margaret Rosenfeld, Everstake’s chief legal officer, also told Cointelegraph that “with non-custodial staking, there’s no handover of assets, no investment contract, and no third-party risk.” She added:

“Treating it as a securities offering undermines the decentralized model and risks chilling innovation in the blockchain sector.”

Nevertheless, the SEC has so far withheld a definitive stance. Rosenfeld said that the agency did not make any “specific commitments” on staking guidance. However, it continues to listen to industry stakeholders.

“The Task Force is actively engaging with a range of stakeholders—including those involved with non-custodial staking, ETFs, and broader blockchain infrastructure—to gather input.”

In an April 30 letter to the SEC, nearly 30 crypto advocate groups led by the lobby group the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI) asked the agency for clear regulatory guidance on crypto staking and staking services.

Magazine: Binance Wallet ‘killing’ MetaMask and airdrops, Chinese RWA tokens: Asia Express

Politics

New Zealand man arrested in $265M crypto scam tied to FBI probe

Published

5 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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New Zealand man arrested in 5M crypto scam tied to FBI probe

A man from Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, has been arrested in connection with an FBI-led investigation into a global cryptocurrency fraud operation that allegedly stole $450 million New Zealand dollars ($265 million).

According to New Zealand Police, the man is one of 13 individuals charged after authorities executed search warrants across Auckland, Wellington, and California over the past three days.

The charges stem from allegations that members of an organized criminal group manipulated seven victims to obtain large amounts of cryptocurrency, which was then laundered through multiple platforms between March and August 2024.

The US Department of Justice has indicted the man under federal law, including charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, per the announcement.

New Zealand man arrested in $265M crypto scam tied to FBI probe — *Source: New Zealond Police*

Scammer used stolen funds to purchase luxury vehicles

Prosecutors allege the stolen funds were used to purchase $9 million worth of luxury vehicles and spent lavishly on high-end goods, including designer handbags, watches, and clothing, as well as services such as nightclub access, private security, and rentals in Los Angeles, Miami, and the Hamptons.

The accused appeared in Auckland District Court and was granted bail with interim name suppression. He is scheduled to reappear on July 3.

“We have worked closely with our law enforcement colleagues in the United States in support of their investigation,” the police stated. They added:

“Today’s search warrant and arrest reflects the importance of international partnerships where criminals are operating across borders.”

The investigation remains ongoing.

Crypto thefts surge to $360 million in April

Digital asset thefts skyrocketed in April 2025, with nearly $360 million stolen across 18 separate hacking incidents, according to data from blockchain security firm PeckShield.

The figure marks a staggering 990% jump from March when reported losses stood at just $33 million. The sharp rise was largely attributed to a single unauthorized Bitcoin transfer that accounted for the bulk of the month’s losses.

On April 28, blockchain analyst ZachXBT identified a suspicious $330 million BTC transaction. The incident was later confirmed as a social engineering attack that targeted an elderly US resident, resulting in one of the largest individual crypto thefts to date.

Magazine: Binance Wallet ‘killing’ MetaMask and airdrops, Chinese RWA tokens: Asia Express

Politics

French crypto entrepreneurs to receive extra security amid recent kidnappings: Report

Published

12 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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French crypto entrepreneurs to receive extra security amid recent kidnappings: Report

Crypto entrepreneurs and their families in France will receive enhanced security measures amid a recent rise in crypto-related kidnappings in the country, Politico reported.

According to the May 16 report, the measures include priority access to police emergency lines, home security assessments, and safety briefings from French law enforcement to ensure best practices are being followed.

France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau introduced the security measures as part of a broader effort to counter the recent wave of attacks.

“These repeated kidnappings of professionals in the crypto sector will be fought with specific tools, both immediate and short-term, to prevent, dissuade and hinder in order to protect the industry.”

Law enforcement officers will also undergo “anti-crypto asset laundering training,” Retailleau noted.

Retailleau met with several local leaders from the crypto industry to discuss the measures following three crypto-related kidnapping incidents in recent months.

Two kidnappings and a failed attempt in France this year

The latest incident occurred on May 13, when assailants attempted to abduct the daughter and grandson of Pierre Noizat, CEO of the French crypto platform Paymium. Fortunately, they managed to fend off the attack, which occurred in broad daylight.

The assailants tried to force the pair into a waiting van, but Noizat’s daughter managed to take one of the guns off an assailant and throw it away, local police said.

En plein Paris, un homme a été violenté par des individus cagoulés, habillés tout en noir. Ils tentaient de l’enlever. Un homme a surgi, extincteur à la main, pour les faire fuir. →https://t.co/P0qV6PR40v pic.twitter.com/9f4r2Gi7ho

— Le Figaro (@Le_Figaro) May 13, 2025

On May 3, Paris police freed the father of a crypto entrepreneur who was held for several days in connection with a 7 million euros ($7.8 million) kidnapping plot.

In January, the co-founder of crypto hardware wallet provider Ledger, David Balland, was abducted from his home in central France during the early hours of Jan. 21. He was held captive until a police operation on the night of Jan. 22 secured his release.

Retailleau said earlier this week that he believes the incidents were likely connected.

There have been over 150 crypto-related robbery or kidnapping incidents since 2014, with 23 of those incidents occurring in 2025 alone, according to a GitHub database maintained by Bitcoin cypherpunk Jameson Lopp.

Lopp noted many of these criminals typically identify future victims through social media posts, public conversations, meetups, and conferences.

He strongly advises against peer-to-peer trades — particularly with people you don’t trust — flaunting wealth on social media and wearing crypto-branded clothing.

Magazine: Binance Wallet ‘killing’ MetaMask and airdrops, Chinese RWA tokens