More than 900 officers from Britain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany carried out raids in the early hours of Tuesday to arrest gang members suspected of smuggling 10,000 people into Britain across the Channel in small boats – a quarter of 40,000 arrivals since the beginning of last year. German police deployed the elite GSG 9 unit and its special forces to target the ringleaders of the operation, who were feared to be armed and violent, in Osnabruck, according to newspaper reports in Germany. The gang used Germany to store boats, engines and other equipment imported via Turkey before taking the ships to the north coast of France for migrants to set off for Britain. They made £65,000 per crossing, with up to 20 people crammed into each boat, according to the German press. At least 18 suspected human traffickers are said to have been arrested in Germany. In the UK, police arrested six men and a woman in London’s Docklands and Catford areas as part of the operation, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA). Those arrested included a 26-year-old man arrested in Rushey Green, Catford, on suspicion of conspiracy to facilitate illegal immigration, and a 22-year-old man arrested in St Davids Square on the Isle of Dogs. A 20-year-old woman and an 18-year-old man were also arrested on suspicion of possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply after a suspected quantity of cocaine was found. They remain in custody and are being questioned by NCA investigators. Two other men were arrested for immigration offenses and will face immigration authorities.
“This is tough organized crime”
The NCA said: “Officers joined what is believed to be the biggest international operation targeting criminal networks suspected of using small boats to smuggle thousands of people into the UK.” The multinational operation took place after Gerald Darmanin, the French interior minister, had complained that 90 percent of equipment for cross-channel people-smuggling operations came from Germany. One of the ringleaders is in jail in France after a rival was shot 10 times in Osnabruck last November but survived despite serious abdominal injuries. “This is serious organized crime. They are not stingy when it comes to territorial disputes and the battle for power,” one researcher told Bild. Europol – which co-ordinated the operation – and the NCA are expected on Wednesday to release further details of the raids, which are likely to be hailed by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, as a major breakthrough in efforts to combat people smugglers. A total of 12,700 people have made the treacherous journey down the 21-mile Dover Straits on 378 boats so far this year – double the number at the same point last year. Some 28,526 people made the crossing last year, compared to 8,410 who arrived in 2020.
More than 3,000 crossings last month
Smugglers will face maximum sentences of life in prison under the Nationality and Borders Act, which came into force last week and also aims to make it harder for those entering the UK illegally to claim asylum. The government’s controversial Rwanda policy, which promised to fly those arriving in Britain illegally to the east African country, has been halted after a series of legal challenges. Ms Patel announced the policy in a bid to prevent people crossing the Channel in small boats, but more than 3,000 crossed last month – the highest monthly total this year. Some 3,136 people made the crossing on 76 boats over a 30-day period, with the trips taking place on 19 of those days.
