22-07-2025
My investigation proves the trafficking racket in Calais is evolving at frightening pace
They call it the Opal Coast, and tourism chiefs have not given up trying to attract regular visitors. Adverts boast of 74 miles of beaches, dunes and cliffs, promising a 'breath of French air' to day-trippers, along with a peculiar light that inspired a local painter to come up with the romantic name.
What local bigwigs do not mention, of course, is the other visitors to these beaches, namely the hordes of illegal immigrants en route to the UK. It is no exaggeration to say that the mass influx of desperadoes has turned much of the historic and naturally beautiful coastline into a filthy, crime-ridden, third world hell-hole. The French police have started warning respectable visitors about shadowy men with guns.
As Prime Minister Keir Starmer launches his latest wheeze to stop the boats – a much derided 'one in one out' agreement with French President Emmanuel Macron – I have begun my own research into the crisis. Step one was a quick recce by a small investigation team. What they witnessed in just 48 hours last week, raises alarming new questions about the attitude of the French authorities, and the way in which the multimillion pound people smuggling business is rapidly evolving.
That the French police are no match for the hardened criminals, behind what is now a highly sophisticated and increasingly efficient global operation, is well known. What is new is their efforts to hide it. Amid mounting political pressure over the huge sums of UK taxpayer money they receive to help stop the boats, the gendarmes appear to be turning on the British media. Turn up with a notebook or a camera, and it is not the people smugglers, but the police, who get in the way.
But first, to the dismal state of the Opal Coast and the once elegant little towns, where pavements, supermarkets and public transport hubs are now dominated by throngs of penniless young men from north Africa, Asia and the Middle East. They hang around train stations, loiter on street corners and do not bother with litter bins, a habit that is despoiling roadsides, woods and beaches. Verges and lay-bys are a fetid mess of discarded food wrappers, plastic bottles, crushed tin cans and soiled rags. Ditches have been turned into open air toilets, with migrants squatting in full view of passing traffic. Bushes and scrubland are littered with human faeces.
Drone footage reveals hundreds, if not thousands, of these impoverished souls camping out in the woods, but it would be misleading to suggest they are hiding. The French authorities know exactly where they are, but do nothing.
Very evidently, most of those hoping to get to the UK have little more than the shabby clothes they are wearing – which begs a very important question. How on earth can they afford the ticket to England?
According to received wisdom, a place on what many migrants now call the 'taxi service' across the Channel to the UK costs between £1,000 and £1,500. That is the equivalent of the average annual income in places like Eritrea and Sudan, where many begin their journey. It is like asking a jobless Brit to stump up £30,000. Really?
Well, perhaps not. We talked to one migrant who may unwittingly have let the cat out of the bag. Speaking in broken English, he seemed to be saying he would not be paying a penny. If true, it sounds very much as if certain smugglers have begun to offer a 'buy now pay later' scheme. This would be a whole new ballgame. Are we now importing people who arrive in our country heavily indebted to criminal gangs?
While they wait for their big moment – a place on the next launch – migrants doss down in shabby tents and other makeshift shelters in woodland camps, subsisting on handouts from refugee charities and crates of beer from the local supermarché.
In scenes reminiscent of the river Ganges, they wash their clothes in canals and drift between towns and encampments on foot or by public transport.
Which brings us to the questionable role of certain French coach companies.
Periodically, large white buses – a state-run service that currently costs just one euro to board – pull up at unmarked stops along the coast, disgorging passengers who are very obviously trying to get to Britain. What are the operators doing, knowingly transporting asylum seekers from urban areas to locations within walking distance of departure points for the boats?
According to the French press, the drivers hate their involuntary role in the racket. Apparently, there are frequent fights between passengers, especially when news travels that a boat is about to depart, and there's a stampede for seats. The drivers say some migrants board buses carrying life jackets, leaving zero doubt as to where they are heading. So far from stopping and detaining migrants, the police can be observed enabling their passage, sometimes going so far as to escort the coaches to drop-off points. What a joke!
As my team recorded all this on smart phones, it was the police, not the migrants, who became aggressive. They surrounded my researchers, demanding to see their passports, searching their car, and claiming that they needed press passes. If only they asked as many questions of the shady characters making their way to Britain.
French law is clear: reporters, including so-called 'citizen journalists' without formal credentials, are entitled to go about their work in public places. Stung, perhaps, by recent embarrassing images showing how little they are doing, it seems the gendarmes have now resorted to trying to block the media.
Unfortunately for them, the sheer scale of this crisis now makes it impossible to conceal. Hanging around by the D601 road was a particularly sinister character. Heavily tattooed, he gave his name as Azad and said he was Kurdish. He claimed to have been living in Germany for 10 years. Inked beneath one eye, and on his forearm, were the unmistakable outlines of AK-47s. He had the air of a man used to being watched, with a lot to hide. Everything about him screamed people smuggler.
Luckily for him, the French authorities don't seem to like asking people like him any awkward questions.
