Rwanda flights: Thousands of asylum seekers not reporting to Home Office ‘will be found’, minister warns
Thousands of asylum seekers set for removal to Rwanda who have not reported to the Home Office “will be found and will be removed” by law enforcement, a minister has told Sky News.
A Home Office impact assessment published on Monday said only 2,143 of the 5,700 asylum seekers Rwanda has agreed to accept from the UK attend regular check-ins and “can be located for detention”.
This leaves 3,557 people not in regular contact.
However, government minister Victoria Atkins told Sky News: “Some are already detained in facilities, others are perhaps staying with friends or family. But the Home Office is in contact with much of the cohort.
“The Home Office is used to this, operationally, law enforcement officers are used to this.
“We want the message to go out loud and clear that if somebody doesn’t report as they should do, they shouldn’t think that they’ll get away with it. They will be found.
“Law enforcement have a variety of measures to find people.
“They will be found and they will be removed.
“I don’t pretend this is going to be easy. And we are very much doing this.”
Ms Atkins insisted all 5,700 people identified in the first group “as well as others” will be sent to Rwanda by the end of the year.
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Rwanda plan: ‘What does success mean?’
Only asylum seekers who arrived between 1 July 2022 and 29 June 2023 and who already received a letter telling them about the Rwanda plan are in this first group.
The first flights are planned for this July, which indicates no one who arrived in Britain on a small boat during the previous year will be onboard.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he wants the first flights to take off within 10 to 12 weeks after the law was passed last week.
The controversial law was passed after a bill was created stating that Rwanda should be regarded as a safe country “for the purposes of relocating people, including in UK courts and tribunals”.
It suffered a number of setbacks and delays, including the Supreme Court ruling the scheme to send people arriving in the UK in small boats to Rwanda “unlawful” last year.
Ms Atkins added: “We want to deal with this. We don’t pretend it’s easy, but we believe that Rwanda is one of the many tools we have at our disposal.”
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Rishi Sunak with Rwandan President Paul Kagame outside 10 Downing Street. Pic: Reuters
After the law was passed, Mr Sunak said there were now 2,200 detention spaces and 200 dedicated caseworkers had been trained to process claims quickly.
About 25 courtrooms have been made available and 150 judges will provide 5,000 sitting days, he added.
The prime minister also said there were 500 “highly trained individuals ready to escort illegal migrants all the way to Rwanda, with 300 more trained in the coming week”.
Legal challenges are still expected, with campaigners saying they are identifying asylum seekers who may be singled out for deportation and will be lodging legal challenges.
A clash with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) – which blocked the first flight from taking off in June 2022 – could also be on the cards.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Source: Web.archive.org
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Related: Bitcoin at 16: From experiment to trillion-dollar asset
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
Related: Bitcoin’s next catalyst: End of $36T US debt ceiling suspension
Is Satoshi Nakamoto wealthier than Bill Gates?
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
Satoshi’s new addresses. Source: Conor Grogan
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
Magazine: 10 crypto theories that missed as badly as ‘Peter Todd is Satoshi’
The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Source: Anthony Scaramucci
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
Trump said the reciprocal tariffs will be roughly half the rate US trading partners impose on American goods.
Related: Bitcoin bulls defend $80K support as ‘World War 3 of trade wars’ crushes US stocks
Meanwhile, the crypto industry has pointed out that while the stock market continues to decline, Bitcoin (BTC) remains stronger than most expected.
Crypto trader Plan Markus pointed out in an April 4 X post that while the entire stock market “is tanking,” Bitcoin is holding.
Source: Jeff Dorman
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
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