FORGET cruise fare increases – prices to smuggle people into the UK illegally are soaring, with the issue apparently due to a shortage of suitable boats. A BBC investigation of gangs in France who promised to get migrants across the English Channel found many hopeful travellers were being transported on...
FORGET cruise fare increases – prices to smuggle people into the UK illegally are soaring, with the issue apparently due to a shortage of suitable boats.
A BBC investigation of gangs in France who promised to get migrants across the English Channel found many hopeful travellers were being transported on free French public transport to the beaches of Dunkirk, where they were told to hide until the boats were ready.
A reporter posing undercover as a refugee was told by a smuggler that the current price to reach the UK was 2,800 per person, “otherwise I won’t make any profit”.
The report also quoted another smuggler warning that prices would increase, telling the BBC staffer “there are not enough boats…some problem in Germany”.
“We get them from Turkey and bring them via Germany,” the smuggler said.
The report has provoked reactions of outrage in the UK after being broadcast, with the matter raised in Parliament by Dover MP Natalie Elphicke who said “it beggars belief there’s a bus service from the migrant camps to the departure places…it clearly needs addressing urgently”.
About 35,000 people have made the crossing this year.
