The National Crime Agency and Border Force seized 25 vessels at a freight hub at East Midlands Airport
Small boats were seized (Image: National Crime Agency)
Migrant smuggling gangs are trying to ship inflatable dinghies to France using air freight services, detectives have revealed. The National Crime Agency (NCA) and Border Force seized 25 vessels at a freight hub at East Midlands Airport.
And investigators said it WAS the second time that small-boat equipment had been seized in the UK this year. The 25 dinghies could have carried 1,700 migrants. The pallets were on an air freight shipment from Turkey to the Netherlands. Officers from the NCA said each vessel was around nine metres long, meaning they could have carried 70 people.
NCA deputy director of investigations Craig Turner said: “We continue to target groups or individuals directly involved in the supply of boats and engines used in the Channel for people smuggling. This work is happening both overseas, with international partners, and here in the UK. So far, it has led to the seizure of in excess of 1,600 boats and engines, denying their use to criminal networks.
“Our assessment is that this is having an impact, driving up the cost of boats and engines, making it more difficult to get them to the coast and eating into the profits of the criminal gangs involved. I’ve no doubt the boats we’ve seized here would have ended up being used to risk the lives of a huge number of people in the Channel had we not stepped in. Our investigation continues.”
Boats were found on an air freight flight (Image: National Crime Agency)
Speaking to the Daily Express at the Conservative Party Conference, the Shadow Home Secretary said a new Removals Force will boot out 150,000 failed asylum seekers, foreign criminals and visa overstayers a year.
Chris Philp said a Kemi Badenoch Government would return migrants to Afghanistan and Somalia. And he would be prepared to deport Iranians once the mullahs of Tehran have been replaced. The Conservatives have vowed to scrap controversial payments for migrants to encourage them to leave voluntarily, vowing that Britain must “seize” control of the borders again.
Labour’s migrant crisis has intensified in recent weeks, as dinghies carrying more than 100 people have been intercepted off the coast of Portsmouth. Some 149 people were brought into Gosport on Sunday night, sparking fury as the asylum seekers arrived at the home of the Royal Navy.
Two men died during another disastrous Channel migrant crossing in the early hours of Monday morning as people tried to get water and petrol out of their dinghy using shoes. A fire erupted after a petrol leak on a vessel which picked people up off the coast at Berck, south Boulogne-sur-mer.
The Conservatives believe that ramping up deportations is the best way to end the Channel migrant crisis.
Mr Philp told this newspaper: “We would use technology like live facial recognition to identify people just walking down the street who shouldn’t be in the country.
“We would certainly use the whole range of government databases if people, for example, try to claim benefits who aren’t entitled to be in the country.
“We would also step up raids on places where we believe illegal working is taking place, things like car washes, things like some of these vape shops and candy stores on the high street, likely to have illegal immigrants working there.
“And if those illegal immigrants were encountered, they would be rapidly deported without endless legal processes, without endless asylum claims or modern slavery claims or human rights claims.
“By dismantling all of that legal architecture, we could deport people really quickly. The numbers being deported now on an enforced basis are simply far too low. The numbers need to be far, far higher.”