A special team of police and immigration officers set up to hunt down dangerous foreign criminals has been disbanded.
Home Secretary John Reid confirmed the decision even though some of the criminals have not yet been located.
The team was set up to hunt down the most serious of the 1,023 foreign prisoners released from UK jails without being considered for deportation, including 74 violent and sexual offenders - seven of them guilty of murder, manslaughter, rape or paedophile crimes.
Mr Reid said the manhunt had been called off because all but seven of those being sought had now been tracked down. Those not found are believed to have either left the country or died, he said.
"We have got the vast majority of them now under lock and key," he told ITV1's The Sunday Edition. "Some of them, we think, may be dead or out of the country.
"I think there are about seven of them that we haven't managed to locate. We believe some of those seven may have left the country or may not still be alive.
"The resources that we put into tracing the others - about 40 or 50 of them - have now come to the end of their useful life in their present configuration."
Mr Reid said it had been a police judgment, not a political decision, to disband the unit.
"Since the job of that particular team is finished, then they have been disbanded," he said. "But it doesn't mean that the general efforts have been stopped."
Challenged on why the unit's work had been halted before all of the offenders had been found, Mr Reid said: "I think most people recognise that we can put enormous efforts into this, but it isn't possible always to accomplish 100% of everything. I'm the Home Secretary, not the Wizard of Oz."
