National Crime Agency officers have targeted members of a major criminal network suspected of involvement in the smuggling of up to 10,000 people into the UK.
(Picture: National Crime Agency)France has “upped its game” and is two thirds of the way to its target for busting the business model of the Channel migrant smuggling gangs, the National Crime Agency has said after a wave of arrests in London and elsewhere in Europe.
Chris Farrimond, the agency’s deputy director, said the French authorities were “putting a lot of effort into stopping boats going at all” and were aiming to ensure that there was no longer enough in the trade for the crime groups involved to continue.
He said the French assessment was that this would require 75 per cent of planned boat departures to be thwarted.
He said the current success rate was “around about 50 per cent” – meaning that France is two thirds of the way to achieving its ambition – and expressed optimism that further successes could be achieve as he praised the intensified French effort.
“From an operational point of view they have upped their game quite considerably,” Mr Farrimond said.
“They’re putting a lot of effort into stopping the boats going at all. The French assessment is that if they were to be able to stop 75 per cent of the boats leaving the French coast that would effectively break the traffickers’ model. There wouldn’t be enough money in the trade to make it worthwhile.
“They are not at 75 per cent at the moment – they are much closer to around 50 per cent – but they really have stepped it up and having more success there.”
Mr Farrimond’s comments came after law enforcers targeting a crime group suspecting of trafficking as many as 10,000 Channel migrants made more than 50 arrests across Europe, including six in London.
More than 60 boats and 900 lifejackets were found in Germany, where they were being stored ready to be taken to the Channel coast.
Boats, engines, lifejackets and pumps used to inflate dinghies were also seized in the Netherlands as part of an international operation involving Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands and the EU bodies Europol and Eurojust.
Many of the boats are believed to have been bought in Turkey as part of a sophisticated criminal enterprise intended to evade French detection efforts close to the Channel in which boats kept in Germany were being brought into France only at the last minute when migrants were ready to depart for Britain.
Two of the six people arrested in London, at addresses in Catford and the Isle of Dogs, were held on suspicion of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration and laundering the profits as part of the crime group.
Two others were held as suspected illegal migrants and two others arrested over suspected drug offences.
The NCA said the arrests and those carried out in Europe were a major success against “one of the most significant and most prolific crime groups” involved in the small boat trafficking trade across the Channel.
