The small boats crisis should 'scare the life out of people', a former police chief said today – as it emerged Iran may be using the route to move operatives into the UK. Roy McComb, who served as deputy director of the National Crime Agency (NCA) from 2014 to 2019, described the crossings as a significant national security threat. He said 'very liberal attitudes' that treated small boat migration as a humanitarian issue were hindering Government action to stop it. And he insisted the predominantly young, male demographic of small boat migrants increased the risk they could include criminals, foreign agents or terrorists.'The small boats threat is there for everybody to see - they're filled with young, military age men,' Mr McComb told the Daily Mail.'This should scare the life out of any reasonable person. It's being treated by the authorities as a humanitarian crisis and it's not. 'These people are being smuggled in and then they are effectively being facilitated by the very liberal attitudes we have to wander around the countryside. 'Even if they're stopped they can say ''I'm an asylum seeker'' and be entitled to protection'.His intervention follows reports that the feared Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), recently proscribed in Britain, is using the small boat route to move covert agents into the UK. A mega-dinghy that was launched from northern France on July 23. The migrants were picked up in the Channel by Border Force and taken to the UK The IRGC was founded by acolytes of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini to defend the Islamic Republic of Iran's core values. Pictured is one of its fighters in 2024 People smugglers were reported as saying that Tehran was involved in facilitating the passage of migrants from Calais to the UK in return for a future 'favour' once they had arrived. Meanwhile, an Iranian official was quoted as claiming that 'revolutionary' operatives had been stationed in London in connection with the IRGC's Unit 700 – the logistics branch of the Quds Force, the IRGC's covert foreign operations division.Mr McComb, who was head of organised crime for the Police Service of Northern Ireland before joining the NCA, said it made sense that Iran would seek to infiltrate operatives through illegal routes and 'seek to use them later'. 'The NCA and security services have been very clear that we have threat convergence, with organised crime groups delivering young, military age personnel from countries that are routinely hostile to the UK,' he said. 'The IRGC Unit 700 linkage shows that these people aren't just posing as a casual threat.' Last year, three Iranian men who arrived in the country illegally were charged with spying for Iran.Mostafa Sepahvand, Farhad Javadi Manesh and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori are alleged to have targeted journalists working for the London-based independent broadcaster Iran International.Sepahvand has been accused of planning to commit 'serious violence against a person in the UK', while Manesh and Noori are accused of spying 'with the intention that acts, namely serious violence against a person in the UK, would be committed by others'.They all deny the charges and will go on trial at Woolwich Crown Court in October. Also warning of the threat of Tehran-backed violence in the UK was George Simm, former Regimental Sergeant Major of 22 SAS from 1992 to 1994.He said that 'we don't have to guess about whether the IRGC intend to mount attacks in the UK, their officials have just told us'. He believes IRGC-linked individuals are firmly 'in the foothills' of their preparations and could stage attacks that pose 'a massive threat to life'.