This is the first picture of a luxury yacht used by suspected Albanian people smugglers to conceal migrants headed for Britain.
The 23ft vessel is believed to have sailed from Brest, France and was intercepted in the English Channel en route to Newquay on South Coast.
It comes as criminal gangs find new ways of evading the authorities after a fast-track returns deal led to a sharp decline in Albanians arriving in small boats.
When Border Force officers searched the yacht they found 20 passengers hidden below the family cruiser’s deck on Sunday.
All are thought to be Albanian nationals. The 19 men and one woman have been detained pending removal from the UK, a Home Office spokesman said.
Albanian national Bleda Bega, 44, has been charged with “facilitation of illegal entry” into the country in connection with the incident.
He was remanded into custody to appear at Truro Crown Court on May 13.
Fellow Albanians Florjand Lika, 30, and Romeo Zani, 32, are accused of breaching deportation orders.
Both pleaded guilty at Bodmin Magistrates’ Court on April15. They were remanded into custody to appear at Truro Crown Court for sentencing next month.
The yacht appears to be a Beneteau Oceanis Clipper 343, described online as a family cruising yacht, and used versions of the same boat are on sale online for between £50,000-80,000. It has two cabins, six beds and one bathroom.
Government data, published on Monday, shows that there were no small boat crossings on April 13. Those discovered on the yacht were not included in Sunday’s figures.
However 11 vessels, containing 656 people, made the journey across the Channel on Saturday -the highest number in a single day this year.
Provisional data suggests a record number of migrants have come to the UK in small boats this year, with more than 8,000 people arriving in the first four months of 2025.
This is 46 per cent higher than at the same point last year when 5,517 people had made the crossing. It is 65 per cent higher than at this stage in 2023.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.
“That’s why this government has put forward a serious, credible plan to finally restore order to our asylum system, including tougher enforcement powers, ramping up returns to their highest levels for more than half a decade and a major crackdown on illegal working to end the false promise of jobs used by gangs to sell spaces on boats.
“Our Border Force teams also maintain constant vigilance over attempts to enter the UK illegally, using state of the art technology and surveillance capabilities.
“Anyone who seeks to smuggle people into the country in this way faces arrest, prosecution and a jail sentence.”
