The ringleaders of a notorious U.K. grooming gang are taking advantage of a legal loophole that is preventing them from being deported to Pakistan, triggering a diplomatic standoff.

Adil Khan, 54, and Qari Abdul Rauf, 55, were jailed in the United Kingdom in 2012 for leading a group of nine men that sexually assaulted 47 girls, some as young as 12 years old. The men would get them high and drunk before sexually assaulting and eventually pimping them out.

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Khan and Rauf were stripped of their British nationality after being found guilty of rape and trafficking. They tried to fight deportation but lost their cases in 2018. The men then tore up their Pakistani passports, renounced their citizenship, and essentially became “stateless.” 

Their lawyers argued they have no country to be sent back to and must stay in the U.K. Pakistan has refused to accept the men, citing them as too dangerous. 

Robert Jenrick, shadow justice secretary, wants the U.K. to up the stakes. In an op-ed for the Daily Telegraph, he called on Foreign Secretary David Lammy to “summon” Pakistan’s High Commissioner and “give them a week to take back these men.” 

“If they don’t, visas should be immediately suspended for all Pakistanis wanting to come to the U.K.,” Jenrick wrote. “If they continue to refuse, aid should be suspended. It’s that simple.” 

Pakistani officials told the Daily Telegraph that progress could be made if the U.K. engaged in negotiations, suggesting that the resumption of direct flights on Pakistan’s national carrier, Pakistan International Airlines, could be part of discussions. PIA’s direct flights to the U.K. were suspended in July 2020.

Rauf, a father of five, is currently living free in Rochdale and working as a delivery driver, the Daily Mail reported. 

“Nobody can believe he is still allowed to live in the same town where he carried out his vile crimes,” one of his neighbors told the outlet. “It’s disgusting. What is the country coming to? Why is he still here?”

Talk of the deportations has surfaced as the British government announced an independent national inquiry into “grooming gangs” following the release of a damning report by Baroness Louise Casey that criticized decades of institutional failure to protect children. In her audit, Casey called the scandal “one of the most horrendous crimes in our society.”

It is believed that thousands of girls across the U.K. have been raped, abused, passed around, beaten, and, in some cases, tortured by these grooming groups.

The men lured the most vulnerable girls, who were often poor, fatherless, or orphans, with food, candy, and car rides. Young men typically found the girls in public places such as shopping malls or outside schools and gradually introduced them to drugs and alcohol. That was followed by a sexual relationship with one man who demanded the girl prove her love and loyalty by having sex with his friends. 

The girls were then repeatedly raped and rented out to nefarious networks in other cities and ultimately tossed aside after they reached 16, the legal age of consent in the U.K. 

In 2014, the findings of an investigation into abuse in Rotherham set off alarms, but little was done in response. At least 1,400 children, some as young as 11, were found to have been groomed for sexual exploitation and trafficking between 1997 and 2013.

The report noted that local authorities had known about the industrial-scale abuse but ignored it. Some police officers called the underaged girls “tarts” and referred to their rapes as a “lifestyle choice.” 

The report also revealed that similar gangs were operating in at least 50 cities in England. 

As of 2025, more than two decades since the allegations were first made, only 61 convictions have been secured despite the fact that by some calculations, one in every seven ethnic Pakistani men in some towns participated in the rape industry.

The decision to finally launch a national inquiry represents a significant reversal by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which had previously resisted months of pressure, insisting it was prioritizing the implementation of recommendations from an earlier investigation.

Starmer now says he supports calls for a sweeping investigation with the power to compel witnesses and has vowed to investigate institutional failings and possible cover-ups. He also announced a nationwide police operation to track down new offenders and reopen some cases, along with a mandate to collect ethnicity data on all grooming suspects.

Reports have emerged over the years that social workers were intimidated into silence and told they would lose their jobs if they reported rapes. Local law enforcement routinely ignored and, in some cases, even abetted the rapists.

What’s worse is that senior police officials and others with even more authority deliberately avoided taking action against the rapists, supposedly because they thought this would keep a fragile racial peace. The inaction was referred to as an extension of “community relations.” 

Politicians looked the other way when parents and caregivers begged them for help. When nonprofit organizations, doctors, and victim advocate groups pushed harder and told what they knew to the press, they, too, were labeled racists and Islamophobic. 

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Jenrick said how Starmer proceeds with Pakistan will be “a test” for the country and its leadership.

“Will Starmer protect the public or not?” he asked. “Are we a serious country any more or have our leaders lost the plot?”