Sex offender allowed to stay in UK – as more than half of appeals against asylum decisions successful
Home Office asylum decisions are being overturned by more than half of applicants, as Sky News reveals a convicted sex offender was awarded refugee status after a judge ruled he would be at risk of “mob violence” in Afghanistan.
The man, who was convicted of “outraging public decency and exposure” in 2017, was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register but was given permission to remain in the country.
The evidence of several doctors at his asylum appeal hearings stated that he “continues to act inappropriately towards females”.
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In June 2020, an immigration tribunal judge agreed with lawyers that his “risky behaviours” would expose him to “ill-treatment” in Afghanistan and awarded him refugee status.
Immigration tribunal courts, where judges can overturn the Home Office, have ruled in favour of asylum seekers 51% of the time since 2021.
Sky News reveals that in June 2020 a convicted sex offender was awarded refugee status
And the majority of those who are unsuccessful do not return home, staying in Britain illegally.
On average, more than £34m of legal aid per year has been spent on asylum cases since 2017, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice.
Home Office minister Laura Farris told Sky News the government wanted to “end this merry-go-round” of illegal arrivals to the UK, and said it was “absolutely right that the public expects that foreign national offenders will be deported when their sentence is concluded”.
Meanwhile, Labour’s shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, blasted the “chaos in the asylum system” and “complete lack of enforcement” when someone has committed a serious offence.
She told Sky News it was right the UK gives “sanctuary to those who have fled persecution and conflict”, but added that “standards need to be maintained” so those without the right to stay are removed.
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Asylum seeker Sakhile: Five asylum claims rejected
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‘They just send letters’
Sakhile, 47, claimed asylum in Britain 18 years ago after arriving from Zimbabwe, where she says her political views put her at risk of persecution. Over the years, she has filed four further claims which have all been unsuccessful.
At no point has she ever been threatened with removal. “They just send letters and ask you if you want to go voluntarily,” she says.
Analysis of Home Office data by the Migration Observatory shows almost two-thirds, or 55,273 people, who were refused asylum were not recorded as having left the UK in the decade from 2011.
That figure – which represents 61% of all failed asylum seekers – could be even higher as it does not include partners or children.
Abdul Ezedi, an Afghan man who carried out a chemical attack on a woman and two children in Clapham, was twice rejected by the Home Office but remained in the country.
Despite being on the Sex Offenders’ Register, he was granted asylum on appeal after claiming he had converted to Christianity and would be at risk of persecution in Afghanistan.
Religious conversion is just one reason an appeal can succeed.
Sky News has examined court papers that identify “Westernisation” as an argument made by people whose length of stay in the UK while awaiting a decision means they would face persecution in their home countries.
“Westernisation” is another reason aslyum appeals can be successful
One Iraqi Kurdish family said their daughter was used to living “as a Western woman”.
The judge said: “If this family were transplanted from Liverpool to Baghdad, and carried on living in the way they live here, they would quickly encounter problems.”
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Government minister hits out at ‘lefty lawyers’
‘The system is broken’
In an interview with Sky News earlier this month, science minister Andrew Griffith MP said: “We can’t run an asylum system based on credulous clerics and lefty lawyers.”
But allegations of activism within the courts are dismissed by those who regularly appear against the government.
“The asylum system is broken,” says Ahmed Aydeed, director of public law at Duncan Lewis, who regularly represents asylum seekers. “Lawyers only work within the system created… I think the public would be greatly angered by the way this whole system works.”
Ahmed Aydeed, director of public law at Duncan Lewis
A Home Office spokesperson told Sky News: “We stand firm on our longstanding policy that those without a right to stay in the UK will be removed.
“Our Illegal Migration Act makes this possible, as people who enter the UK illegally will have their asylum claims and human rights claims declared inadmissible, and they will not be able to make a life here.
“Each asylum application is individually assessed, including decisions on removal of individuals.
“Where people have previously been refused asylum in the UK, a fresh asylum claim can be made through legal representation.”
You can watch Becky Johnson’s full report, Faultlines: Asylum Crisis, on Sky News today at 10:30, 12:30, 14;30, 18:30 and 20:00.
The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.
While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.
On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.
Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.
Tariffs compound existing mining challenges
Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.
Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.
According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.
Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo
“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.
He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.
Source: Summer Meng
“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.
Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.
BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”
Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.
“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.
Source: jmhorp
Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.
Related: Bitcoin mining using coal energy down 43% since 2011 — Report
“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.
As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.
Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.
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Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under renewed regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a major fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.
Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based subsidiary — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in the past, the authority announced on April 3.
While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its past compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU notice said.
OKX was among the first crypto exchanges to receive a license under Europe’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation via its Malta hub in January 2025.
The news of the $1.2 million penalty in Malta came after Bloomberg in March reported that European Union regulators were probing OKX for laundering $100 million in funds from the Bybit hack.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou previously claimed that OKX’s Web3 proxy allowed hackers to launder about $100 million, or 40,233 Ether (ETH), from the $1.5 billion hack that occurred in February.
This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.
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Authorities in the US state of Massachusetts continue targeting unlawful cryptocurrency market practices, with a local court fining crypto financial services firm CLS Global.
A federal court in Boston on April 2 sentenced CLS Global on criminal charges related to fraudulent manipulation of crypto trading volume, according to an announcement from the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office.
In addition to a $428,059 fine, the court prohibited CLS Global from offering services in the US for a probation period of three years.
CLS Global, a crypto market maker registered in the United Arab Emirates, in January pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and one count of wire fraud.
CLS agreed to manipulate the FBI’s “trap token” NexFundAI
The charges against CLS Global followed an undercover law enforcement operation involving NexFundAI, a token created by the FBI as part of a sting operation in May 2024.
CLS Global was among at least three firms that took the FBI’s bait and agreed to provide “market maker services” for NexFundAI, including a fraudulent scheme to attract investors to purchase the token.
In October 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against CLS and its employee, Andrey Zhorzhes. The US securities regulator also filed complaints against two other NexFundAI manipulators, Hong Kong-linked ZM Quant Investment and Russia-linked Gotbit Consulting.
CLS Global’s profile
According to CLS Global CEO Filipp Veselov, the company was founded in 2017 to fill in a “huge gap in the market for high-quality market-making solutions and trading consulting.”
Prior to CLS, Veselov worked at the Russian cryptocurrency exchange platform Latoken, which is advertised as a “global digital asset exchange” and has about 370,000 followers on X.
The CLS team also includes chief revenue officer Pavel Singaevskii, who previously served as sales manager at Stex, a crypto platform that reportedly ceased operations without warning in 2023.
Source: CLS Global
According to CLS Global’s X page, the platform continues operating and has more than 110,000 followers at the time of publication.
How much wash trading is in crypto?
Wash trading is an illegal practice involving artificially inflating trading volume by repeatedly buying and selling the same asset, generating a misleading perception of demand.
According to a January 2025 report by the US blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the crypto market has at least $2.6 billion in estimated wash traded volumes, or just about 2% of total daily crypto trading volumes, as reported by CoinGecko.
Estimated wash trade volume in crypto. Source: Chainalysis
Related: Russian Gotbit founder strikes $23M plea deal with US prosecutors
Some studies indicate that wash trading makes up a bigger share of the crypto market.
In 2022, the US National Bureau of Economic Research reported that illegal wash trading may account for as much as 70% of average trading volumes on unregulated exchanges.
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