The suspected ringleaders of a gang smuggling Albanians into the UK on small boats across the Channel were arrested in a series of dawn raids by the National Crime Agency (NCA) on Monday.
The NCA arrested three suspected members of the gang, said to be behind dangerous crossings for which they charged between £2,500 and £7,500 a time.
The crossings included one by a small boat, crammed with 46 migrants, which was intercepted after leaving France in August.
The people on board were predominantly Albanians, including young children and a convicted rapist who had previously been deported from the UK and has now been deported again.
Passengers were removed from the boat and taken to a holding centre by Border Force officers. The NCA, working closely with Border Force’s small boats operational command, investigated the crossing.
The group is also alleged to have also used an HGV lorry at least three times in October and November to bring migrants from Coquelles, in France, before dropping them off at service stations at Cobham, in Surrey, and Thurrock, in Essex.
In raids on Monday morning, a 34-year-old man from Grays, Essex, and a 34-year-old man from Dagenham, east London – the suspected group ringleaders – were apprehended on suspicion of assisting unlawful immigration.
The HGV driver, a 55-year-old man from Belgium, was arrested when his lorry was stopped in Folkestone on Monday. Two other men were arrested at an address in north London on suspicion of unlawful entry to the UK.
Chris Farrimond, the Director of Threat Leadership at the NCA, said: “We have dismantled a suspected organised crime group behind a number of dangerous migrant crossings last year. People-smugglers do not care about the safety of those they transport – they seek to exploit them for profit.
“Tackling organised immigration crime is a priority for the NCA, and we have more than 90 ongoing investigations into networks based here and overseas causing the highest harm. As we target callous organised criminal gangs, we will not hesitate to also pursue HGV drivers complicit in helping them.”
The raids came as the Home Office revealed that 333 migrants in seven dinghies reached the UK on Sunday, taking the total for June to 2,862 and for the year to 10,521.
The numbers raise further doubts over Rishi Sunak’s claim earlier this month that his small boats policies were starting to work.
They mean June’s total of 2,862 people is already close to overtaking last June’s 3,139. This year’s total is only 11 per cent below last year’s – half of the 20 per cent earlier this month when Mr Sunak claimed the Government’s policies were working.