Foreign gangs making ‘easy profits’ by turning to Channel people smuggling 

Foreign crime gangs have switched to smuggling people across the Channel because it is so profitable, a National Crime Agency (NCA) chief has warned.

Miles Bonfield, head of organised immigration crime operations, said Kurdish and west Balkans gangs had moved into trafficking migrants in small boats in the past year as a “low threshold, easy entry” crime where they could make substantial profits.

For the £3,000 price of a boat, an Afghan gang halted by French officials and the NCA this week could make £37,500 per trip by charging the 15 migrants on it up to £2,500. The Paris-based crime group used the same tactics to hide and transport their trafficking boats as they did to smuggle and deal drugs.

“The profits that are made depend on the cost and outlay and the charging prices that they are making to individuals. It does make it a very, very profitable route. We should not underestimate their two motivations – profit, and power and influence,” Mr Bonfield told The Telegraph.

The small boat smuggling was initially dominated by Iranians and Iraqis transporting migrants of their own nationalities across the Channel but Mr Bonfield said it had grown “massively” as Covid travel restrictions halted other ship, lorry and air routes for illegal migration.

“The overall threat to the UK around organised immigration crime has reduced but we have seen a massive increase in relation to small boats,” he said. “You should not underestimate the scale and complexity of this threat and the challenge that faces us in tackling this.

“We are seeing more Kurdish organised crime groups being involved in this trafficking. We are seeing more west Balkans organised crime groups. Sadly, we have seen more Sudanese nationals involved in more chaotic self-generated attempts not facilitated by organised crime groups.”

The west Balkans gangs were primarily ethnic Albanians whom Mr Bonfield described as “poly-criminals”, also smuggling firearms and drugs and money laundering.

Nearly 800 migrants have reached English shores after crossing the Channel in the year to March 8, more than double the 314 in the same period last year, itself a record.

However, the French authorities have increased from 50 per cent to 70 per cent the proportion of migrants turned back before they reach the UK. Yesterday 61 migrants, including 10 children, in two boats were rescued and returned to France by the French authorities after hours at sea.

Mr Bonfield said that since a joint intelligence centre was set up last July with the French, they had made 160 arrests of traffickers and prevented more than 1,400 migrants crossing to England.

He said they were using a combination of “aggressive” disruptive tactics of “leaning into” any suspicious movement of boats, materials or groups, and using undercover agents to infiltrate the gangs.

This week, a Vietnamese gang boss, Tuan Anh Do, 55, who smuggled people into the UK to work on his cannabis farms in Manchester, was jailed for 11 years after his criminal empire was infiltrated by an NCA undercover agent.

Mr Bonfield also revealed that some requests by the NCA to social media firms to take down posts or sites being used by the crime gangs to market their trafficking services to migrants were being turned down by the companies.

Figures last year suggested fewer than half were being taken down after NCA requests because the companies claimed they were not in breach of their terms and conditions.

“We are clear that they need to do more in relation to this,” said Mr Bonfield. “They should be able to use their engineering and technical skills to make their platforms harder for criminals to use for their criminal business which results in people risking their lives.”