Germany / France / Belgium: people-smuggling operation dismantled

22 Feb 2024
On 21 February, In a coordinated effort across four German states, with cooperation from France and Belgium, law enforcement agencies launched a targeted operation against a suspected human-smuggling gang at dawn. This response…

Smuggling migrants

23 Jul 2021
Five Albanians who smuggled migrants through the Channel Tunnel were arrested and held in London; two more arrests were in Surrey and Oxfordshire. Migrants are concealed behind furniture in vehicles hired specially for…

People smugglers

28 May 2020
1,775 migrants entered the UK in small boats this year: a record 741 landed in May. The French navy is escorting them across the Channel and into British waters as smugglers exploit legal…

52 migrants rescued in Channel

23 May 2019
Border Force officials intercepted four flimsy dinghies carrying 52 Iranian and Iraqi men, women and children journeying from northern France to the Kent coast. The people-smuggling gangs make thousands of pounds from sending…

Europe: inside people-smuggling networks

19 Jul 2018
Nazeri Zubair’s travelling companion crushed a pill, dissolved it in water, and fed it to her two-year-old daughter to make the baby sleep for over a day. It was a requirement of the…