More than 700 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel in a single day – a new record for the year so far.
The Home Office said 711 people made the journey in 14 boats on Wednesday, suggesting an average of 51 people per boat.
It takes the provisional total for the number of arrivals this year so far to 8,278.
This is 34% higher than the total at the equivalent point last year and 19% higher than the total at this stage in 2022.
Last year 29,437 migrants arrived in the UK altogether, which was down 36% on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.
The government’s Rwanda deportation plan aims to act as a deterrent to “stop the boats” – one of Rishi Sunak’s key pledges.
Since the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act became law last week, 1,611 migrants have crossed the English Channel.
The legislation aims to revive the stalled scheme which has faced repeated legal challenges since it was announced two years ago.
Read more:
Migrants removed from homes, handcuffed and put in vans
UK must honour deal to take back asylum seekers from Ireland, Irish PM insists
Under the plan, people who enter the UK unauthorised will be sent to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed there.
Since the passage of the latest legislation, tensions have grown between the UK and Ireland after people entered the Republic to escape facing deportation.
But the government in Westminster says it will not take people back until a reciprocal agreement is put in place to allow returns to France for people who cross the Channel.
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First Rwanda relocation raids carried out
No one has been deported to Rwanda yet, though this week a failed asylum seeker voluntarily chose to go to Kigali once their application to stay in the UK failed, under a different scheme.
The government has said removal flights are set to take off in nine to 11 weeks, with the first people to be deported detained on Wednesday after officers raided their homes.
A Nigerian court has reportedly delayed the country’s tax evasion case against Binance until April 30 to give time for Nigeria’s tax authority to respond to a request from the crypto exchange.
Reuters reported on April 7 that a lawyer for Binance, Chukwuka Ikwuazom, asked a court the same day to invalidate an order allowing for court documents to be served to the company via email.
Binance doesn’t have an office in Nigeria and Ikwuazom claimed the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) didn’t get court permission to serve court documents to Binance outside the country.
“On the whole the order for the substituted service as granted by the court on February 11, 2025 on Binance who is … registered under the laws of Cayman Islands and resident in Cayman Islands is improper and should be set aside,” he said.
FIRS sued Binance in February, claiming the exchange owed $2 billion in back taxes and should be made to pay $79.5 billion for damages to the local economy as its its operations allegedly destabilized the country’s currency, the naira, which Binance denies.
It also reportedly alleged that Binance is liable to pay corporate income tax in Nigeria, as it has a “significant economic presence” there, with FIRS requesting a court order for the exchange to pay income taxes for 2022 and 2023, plus a 10% annual penalty on unpaid amounts along with a nearly a 27% interest rate on the unpaid taxes.
Nigeria’s legal history with Binance
In February 2024, Nigeria arrested and detained Binance executives Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla on tax fraud and money laundering charges. The country dropped the tax charges against both in June and the remaining charge against Gambaryan in October.
Tigran Gambaryan (right) was seen in a September video struggling to walk into a courtroom in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. Source: X
Anjarwalla managed to slip his guards and escape Nigerian custody to Kenya in March last year and is apparently still at large.
Related: Binance exec shares details about release from Nigerian detention
Gambaryan, a US citizen, returned home in October after reports suggested his health had deteriorated during his detainment with reported cases of pneumonia, malaria and a herniated spinal disc that may need surgery.
Binance stopped its naira currency deposits and withdrawals in March 2024, effectively leaving the Nigerian market.
Magazine: Trash collectors in Africa earn crypto to support families with ReFi
Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne’s on your podcast app
It’s the final episode before recess so Sky News’ Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy wonder, given the turbulent times, who’ll be the first to call for Parliament to be recalled?
And talking of the Lib Dems, there’s some new polling which might put a spring into the step of Ed Davey – is his party’s position on Trump and trade doing them some favours?
Of course, there’s plenty of time to talk about the onslaught of US tariffs and implications for the UK – watch out for if the PM is asked about fiscal headroom when he appears before the Liaison Committee of senior MPs later.
Sam and Anne also ponder the PM’s response to Sam at a Q&A yesterday.
Asset manager Teucrium Investment Advisors is set to launch the first XRP-based exchange-traded fund in the US markets, a leveraged XRP (ETF) on the NYSE Arca.
The Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF will seek to offer investors two times the daily return of the XRP (XRP) token with a 1.85% management fee and annual expense ratio, according to the company’s website. The XRP-based ETF will trade under the XXRP ticker beginning April 8.
“If you have a short-term high-conviction view on XRP prices, you may consider exploring the Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF,” the alternative asset manager said.
XXRP currently has $2 million worth of net assets.
Details of Teucrium’s soon-to-be-launched XXRP ETF. Source: Teucrium
Teucrium founder and CEO Sal Gilbertie told Bloomberg on April 7 that investors had shown strong interest in an XRP ETF and hinted that it may file to list more crypto ETFs in the future.
Gilbertie was also pleased that XXRP would launch during a market downturn driven largely by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“What better time to launch a product than when prices are low?” Gilbertie told Bloomberg.
Likelihood of an approved spot XRP ETF still high: Analyst
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said it was “very odd” to see a new asset’s first ETF come in leveraged form — however, he added that the odds of a spot XRP ETF being approved remain “pretty high.”
Source: Eric Balchunas
Several spot XRP ETF applications from the likes of Grayscale, Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Canary Capital and 21Shares are being reviewed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In February, Balchunas and fellow Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart attributed 65% approval odds to a spot XRP ETF in 2025.
Predictions market Polymarket states there is currently a 75% chance that the SEC will approve a spot XRP ETF in 2025.
Related: XRP price sell-off set to accelerate in April as inverse cup and handle hints at 25% decline
Up until recently, ETF issuers would have seen a different environment for filing for XRP ETFs as Ripple Labs — the creators of the XRP token — and the SEC battled out a four-year court battle over XRP’s security status.
That case came to a close last month.
Teucrium has amassed over $310 million worth of assets under management since it was founded in 2010.
It offers mostly agricultural commodities, such as ETFs tracking the likes of corn, soybeans, sugar and wheat.
Magazine: XRP win leaves Ripple and industry with no crypto legal precedent set
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