Latest news with #people smuggling
The Sun
4 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
The brazen Brit traffickers using astonishing legal loophole to ship in migrants for £12k a head to work on YOUR street
WITH his easy-going charm, former British soldier Nick fitted in with the wealthy yacht owners sipping gin and tonics on their decks at Ramsgate Marina. Having grown up sailing on the Channel with his dad, he was thrilled with the 21ft-long yacht he had recently bought and loved to take it out at night, enjoying the peace and freedom he experienced under the stars. 9 9 9 9 But these trips were fraught with danger because amiable, good-humoured Nick was actually a secret people smuggler on his way to pick up illegal migrants at Dunkirk in France and bring them to the UK. And, in choosing Ramsgate, he was deliberately flouting the law under the very noses of the UK Border Control based there. It's a far cry from the image of hazardous crossings, with migrants packed on to inflatable rafts, that we see in the news. In fact, it was all plain sailing until Nick was eventually rumbled. But he says that the luxury yacht crossings that he pioneered continue to happen every day from swanky marinas around the country. The astonishing revelation comes after 1,194 migrants crossed the Channel on small boats on Saturday, marking the highest daily number of migrant small boat crossings since 2022. Nick (not his real name) reveals his story to investigative journalist Annabel Deas in the 10-part BBC Radio 4 series Shadow World: The Smuggler. 'We all think we know who people smugglers are,' says Annabel. 'They are people from far away countries with different values and ideas. People who can somehow justify making money out of desperate migrants. "At least, that's who I thought they were. But what if some of the people illegally smuggling migrants into the UK are actually from here? British people smugglers with an intimate knowledge of our borders.' The builder turned smuggler Nick had unexpectedly become a people smuggler in 2009 after his work as a self-employed builder dried up and his Albanian employee, Matt, told him that he could make easy money as a white man with a British passport. With a baby on the way, he was desperate and soon discovered how easy it was to take his car on to the ferry at Dover, pick up pre-arranged illegal Albanian emigrants at Dunkirk and hide them in the boot as he drove back on board for the return journey. Once on the ferry, he would wait for people to evacuate the car deck, then go down and release the man from the boot of his vehicle before finding a suitable lorry for the migrant to cut a hole through the tarpaulin and hide inside. At Dover, he sent a picture and registration plate of the lorry to a member of the Albanian gang keeping watch and then drove through passport control in his car. That was his work done. The following of the lorry and getting the immigrant out of it was somebody else's business. Nick would pocket £3,500 for his 'day trip to France". 'It was so easy,' he says. 'I did it many times and made good money.' His girlfriend broke up with him a few months before their baby was born, but by now, Nick was enjoying the lifestyle. However, after several successful runs, his luck ran out when his car was pulled over to be checked at Dunkirk and a migrant was found hidden in the boot. Nick feigned surprise he was there but he served five months in a French prison before being released. It was a relatively short sentence because they were unaware that he was a seasoned people smuggler. 9 While he was in prison, he heard that Matt had also been caught after a hidden migrant unexpectedly jumped out of a lorry after leaving Dover and got his foot caught in the wheel. The police were called and their investigation led to Matt receiving a seven-year prison sentence. Having served his time in France, Nick returned home to England and began trying to get work as a decorator, but within days he was visited by a mysterious man and woman who refused to identify themselves. 'They showed me a long list of ferry bookings from Dunkirk to Dover, all booked under my name and said, 'You're going to help us or we're going to hold you responsible for some of these.' I had a feeling they were from MI5.' So, for a time, in 2015, he acted as an undercover informant, providing details about the workings of the Albanian gang who had employed him, before one day it suddenly ended. 'The guy just said to me, 'Thank you for your help but we don't need it any more.' And that was it.' After Matt was granted early release, in 2017, he contacted Nick about a new operation brokered by a glamorous, middle-aged Vietnamese woman called Lin, who wanted to smuggle in her fellow countrymen to work on the 35 cannabis farms she had set up around the UK. This time Nick would receive £12,000 per migrant – almost four times the previous rate. It was too tempting to turn down. No longer able to book ferry crossings without alerting the authorities, Nick came up with the idea of using a sailing boat. Matt was surprised but was eventually persuaded and they purchased a boat. Nick then set about finding the perfect route, studying tidal charts and maps, and eventually settled on Ramsgate, Kent, where the UK Border Force is based. 'I chose it because I could monitor them,' he explains. 'It's a big marina and difficult to watch everyone and there would be several shifts of observers. "Also, if you pretend that you are one of the wealthy, who can sit around on boats, then you will fit in. And I do that well.' Lucy Moreton from the Union for Borders, Emigration and Customs, representing frontline staff, says: 'We know that small boats in and around the UK don't declare who they are or who they've got on board and don't say where they are going. They don't have to. 'The law doesn't require them to do that. Generally, they are an independent bunch and the vast majority of them are completely law abiding and just want to go out and sail around. "But that does leave a really exploitable loophole for individuals who want to do harm. There could be thriving small boat traffic that we're not actually looking at.' 9 9 9 After months of planning, Nick set sail from Ramsgate at 1am. Directly, it should only take a few hours but he was being careful and headed north for at least an hour in case anyone was watching. Once he was sure of not being followed, he made a sudden U-turn in the middle of the North Sea and began heading south to Dunkirk where four Vietnamese men were waiting for him. Back in Ramsgate, with the four migrants hidden in the cabin, he moored the boat, walked away and drove home. Following the plan, one of the Albanians would go to the marina and, under cover of darkness, collect the migrants. Once they were taken safely to the cannabis farms, Nick would be paid. But on one occasion, when the migrants were collected while it was still light, they were observed by others and the police were contacted, and Nick had to stay away. A surveillance team was called into operation to keep an eye on Nick's movements. Nick managed to carry out his ruse for up to 18 months before being caught. In late summer 2018, officers spotted him sail into view with four Vietnamese men in his boat. He was arrested and charged with conspiracy to facilitate the illegal entry of foreign nationals into the UK and sentenced to eight years in prison. 'What Nick was doing was unprecedented,' says Annabel. 'Smuggling people into the UK using a boat was virtually unheard of in 2016. You could say that Nick paved the way for the small boat crisis that would come later.' Dinghy crisis More than 13,000 people have crossed the English Channel on small boats so far in 2025. Last year, 78 people died attempting to make the journey - a record number. 'Most gangs now use small, over-crowded, inflatable boats to send people across the English Channel, knowing that once they enter British waters, those on board will be intercepted by Border Force and brought safely ashore. The migrants are then placed in hotels while their asylum claims are considered,' says Annabel. 'But what about the people who don't want to be rescued and instead want to creep in unnoticed, like the ones Nick brought in? 'He told me that right now, gangs are still smuggling people into the UK using marinas and yacht clubs around the country.' 'While we were making this series, a luxury yacht, hiding 20 Albanians below deck was intercepted on its way to a marina in Cornwall.' Labour's vow to 'smash the gangs' won't see Channel migrant numbers fall until NEXT YEAR, sources warn Labour's promise to "smash the gangs" will not see Channel migrant numbers fall until at least next year. Measures to break the route "up stream" by tackling smugglers and boat suppliers will take months to trickle down according to law enforcement sources. Ministers have been warned good weather this year is also contributing to a surge in crossings that are on course for a record year. The number of so called "red days" when the calm seas and wind make it perfect to cross have doubled in 2025 so far according to the same point last year. And intelligence monitoring of the Channel has indicated a rise in migrants from the Horn of Africa has seen riskier and larger crossings attempted. Those smugglers are cramming more people into boats, which is also pushing up the numbers. More than 13,000 people have already made the journey this year, putting 2025 on course to have the highest ever number of crossings, since records began in 2017. Government insiders are highly pessimistic about the prospect of reducing numbers this year. And they warn that policy changes and increase in enforcement measures not noticeably pay off until 2026 due to the high numbers of migrants already in France and ready to attempt the perilous journey. Former Border Force chief Tony Smith told the BBC the "vast majority" of the agency's resources were deployed to the Small Boats Operational Command and that he would like to see focus on other marinas. "My preference certainly would be to be able to deploy more widely and to look more across the whole of the UK coastline to identify threats," he said, adding he thought the interviews with Nick would be "really, really helpful as another source of intelligence". Nick insists small marinas are still being used today and adds: 'People are going to hate me because there'll be smuggling going on now. When they hear this, there's going to be an issue. "I regret a lot of it, but I don't know that it would have ever been any different," he says. "I think I was always out for self-destruction anyway."
Telegraph
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Channel migrants enter UK in lorries while police ‘too focused on small boats'
Migrants are sneaking into the UK in lorries while police are focused on small boats crossing the Channel, a watchdog has said. The HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said officials had missed opportunities to intercept illegal crossings while distracted. The police watchdog also said in a report that the Government had failed to tackle organised crime effectively because police forces were not gathering and sharing intelligence properly. It said the UK's Border Force, police and the National Crime Agency (NCA) needed to be better-connected, noting that some agencies had no access to police records to help them thwart people-smuggling gangs. The report, commissioned and conducted in the first half of 2024, is a blow to Sir Keir Starmer's pledge to 'smash the gangs' as illegal migration continues across the Channel. The Prime Minister repeated his vow to get tough on illegal immigration earlier this month, saying the UK risked 'becoming an island of strangers'. The police watchdog claimed the Government and NCA's focus on Channel crossings left other routes into the UK vulnerable, with migrants sneaking in undetected in the back of lorries, or procuring visas through fraudulent means. 'Throughout this inspection, we often heard that the Government and the [NCA] were too focused on small boats crossing the English Channel', the watchdog said, warning that this might 'lead to missed opportunities in other areas of immigration crime, such as clandestine vehicle entries'. The pace of migrant Channel crossings in small boats so far this year is higher than in previous years. As of May 17, about 12,700 migrants had been detected in the Channel, 30 per cent more than by that time last year, according to government data. But it is impossible to forecast what might come for the remainder of the year. In 2022, when the UK hit a record high of nearly 45,800 small boat arrivals, the numbers only began to spike around mid-July. While migrants crossing the Channel are easily recorded, lorry stowaways may reach the UK undetected. Neville Blackwood, an international law enforcement specialist and former UK police officer, said: 'It's so visible when you've got these boats, and people being escorted by the border force; it's very impactful … and emotive. ' When they come in on a lorry, they aren't necessarily getting picked up and ushered to a hotel.' The number of illegal migrants arriving in the UK by committing visa fraud is also challenging to track. The watchdog said that the focus on small boats meant 'a complete picture of all types of [organised immigration crime] wasn't available'. It said the Government and NCA must establish and co-ordinate their intelligence-gathering because small boats carry illegal migrants who 'are highly likely to have paid members of organised crime groups to arrange their transport'. This makes the migrants potential witnesses and key sources of information on criminal gangs, the watchdog said. But the current approach to intelligence-gathering was 'neither effective nor robust enough', the watchdog said, meaning that 'intelligence and investigative opportunities are being lost'. An efficient and effective legal method should also be set up to allow the authorities to examine migrants' mobile phones and other devices, which might 'have valuable information about the criminals they have been in contact with before crossing, how they paid them, the modes of travel and the routes used', the report added. The report comes after Sir Keir was snubbed last week on his first visit to Albania by Edi Rama, the country's prime minister, who ruled out allowing Britain to send failed asylum seekers to be detained there. Sir Keir had attempted to open talks to establish 'return hubs' to process illegal migrants who have exhausted all options to remain in the UK. Italy built a similar centre in Albania, but it mostly sits empty because of legal challenges in Italy. The UK police watchdog's report issued ten recommendations, including the streamlining of intelligence-sharing within the UK among all agencies working on organised immigration crime, from the National Border Force to regional police forces. It said they should all have access to the Police National Database, which could help them tackle the gangs involved on British soil. Over time, information collected in the database could point to various patterns – for instance, whether a criminal group was operating primarily out of one part of the UK, or if it had a link to other countries, noted Mr Blackwood. The NCA said in response that it had 80 ongoing organised crime investigations, and that 'tackling the networks…is a critical priority'.
The Independent
15-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Starmer to announce new crackdown on people smugglers as he visits Albania
Sir Keir Starmer is set to increase co-operation with Albania on tackling illegal immigration and organised crime as he visits the country on Thursday. In the first official visit to Tirana by a British prime minister, Sir Keir and his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama are expected to agree measures to clamp down on people smuggling. The visit comes in the same week that the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats passed 12,000 for the year. Labour was elected on a manifesto promise to 'smash the gangs' smuggling people into the UK in small boats, but some 12,699 people have made the journey so far this year, putting 2025 on course to be a record year for crossings. But Downing Street said the number of Albanians making the crossing had fallen by 95% in the past three years, while the number returned to Albania had doubled between 2022 and 2024 following increased co-operation between the two countries. Sir Keir said: 'Global challenges need shared solutions, and the work the UK and Albania is doing together is delivering security for working people in both countries. 'And our joint work to deter, detect and return illegal migrants is further proof that intervening upstream to protect British shores and secure our borders is the right approach.' After a spike in numbers in 2022, the UK and Albania struck a deal to work together to prevent people from making the journey, with both the current Labour Government and the previous Conservative administration providing money and expertise for Tirana. Last year, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggested Sir Keir had also been 'very interested' in a deal that has seen Italy send migrants to Albania for processing. The measures expected to be announced on Thursday include support for efforts to ensure migrants remain in Albania after being returned home rather than attempting to enter the UK again – the so-called 'revolving door effect'. The UK will also donate two forgery detection machines to help Albanian police spot people trying to travel to the UK on stolen or fake passports. During his visit to Albania, Sir Keir is expected to announce an expansion of the Joint Migration Task Force to include North Macedonia and Montenegro. The task force, which currently includes the UK, Albania and Kosovo, shares intelligence and carries out operations against people smugglers in the Western Balkans. Sir Keir and Mr Rama are also expected to increase cooperation on tackling organised crime, including sharing DNA swabs of Albanian criminals and investing £1 million in upgrading Tirana's forensics, biometrics and digital capability. The Prime Minister added: 'Every step we take to tackle illegal migration overseas, cripple the criminal networks that facilitate it and stem the finance streams that fund it is delivering safer streets in the UK, and reducing the strain on taxpayer funded services. 'But we cannot take this action alone, through closer partnerships and greater co-operation, we are creating real change with our partners across Europe and delivering on our plan for change.' Following his meetings with Albanian leaders on Thursday, Sir Keir is expected to attend a summit of the European Political Community in Tirana on Friday to discuss both defence and migration. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said Sir Keir's 'entire visit is pure theatre'. The senior Tory added: 'The returns deal with Albania was decisive action taken by the previous Conservative government, resulting in a cut to small boat arrivals from Albania by over 90%. 'So why is Starmer now flying out for a handshake in Tirana to claim credit? If the scheme is already working, what exactly is this trip for? 'If Starmer is so serious about cracking down on illegal migration, he should never have scrapped the Rwanda deterrent before it even started. 'We have seen from Australia that offshore deterrents work. Yet under Labour, 2025 is already the worst year on record for Channel crossings, with over 12,000 crossings and rising. 'Labour is not serious about fixing immigration. Their immigration white flag is weak, spineless and completely out of touch with what the country demands. 'And just this week, they voted against Parliament setting an annual binding cap on migration and against disapplying the Human Rights Act for immigration matters. We need leadership with a backbone; Labour offers none.'
