A legal loophole is allowing smuggling gangs in Germany to stockpile the deadly inflatable boats used to ferry migrants across the Channel.
It is not illegal for migrants to be transported via Germany to a country outside the EU – and since Brexit this also applies to Great Britain.
It means people smuggling gangs can base their boats just a three-hour drive from the French coast while making millions preying on desperate refugees.
The revival comes as Keir Starmer promises a raft of new measures to tackle the ‘despicable trade’ in Channel migrants amid rising numbers of cross-Channel arrivals.
The head of Britain’s National Crime Agency, Graeme Biggar, says the loophole limits our ability to fight back against criminals because British agencies must respect the laws of the countries in which they work.
“They themselves have a very significant challenge in terms of illegal migration that they are dealing with and so we are very grateful for the support that we are receiving,” he said. The sun.
‘But it’s a point we make to them all the time and it would be helpful if they could do something more.
Small boats and outboard motors used by people believed to be migrants to cross the Channel lie ready at a warehouse in Dover, Kent
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“It is of course a matter for the German government to decide, but from our point of view a change in the law would be useful.”
More than 50 people have died this year trying to cross the Channel and seek refuge in Britain.
The deadly rubber boats are first made in China before being shipped more than 5,500 kilometers to smuggling gangs in Turkey.
From there they are driven to Germany, where they are hidden in a network of warehouses and sold to gangs that smuggle migrants across the waters.
They drive the last part of the journey through the Netherlands and Belgium, before completing the final 35 kilometer stretch across the Channel, full of migrants.
Last night, MPs criticized Germany, with Sir Alec Shelbrooke saying EU rules should be ‘irrelevant’ in tackling a plan that capitalizes on the ‘exploitation of vulnerable people who die by the dozens every year’.
Home Affairs Select Committee chairs Karen Bradley added that stopping people smuggling should be a ‘global priority’.
And even Interpol’s director for organized and emerging crime backed Mr Biggar, telling The Sun that gangs ‘don’t care what the trail of destruction is’.
A migrant reacts after boarding a smuggler’s inflatable dinghy in an attempt to cross the English Channel on Ecault beach in northern France on October 30
More than 30,000 migrants have made the perilous journey across the Channel in small boats so far this year. Pictured: Arriving in Dover, Kent last month
It comes after Sir Keir pledged a raft of new measures amid criticism from Tories over his ‘weak’ record on illegal migrants and rising numbers of cross-Channel arrivals.
Labour’s new Border Security Command (BSC) will be given sweeping powers to stop and search suspected traffickers, including seizing their phones and other devices.
Officials will be able to obtain search warrants to seize items from buildings before a crime has even occurred; powers currently reserved only for anti-terrorist matters.
Suspected traffickers will face invasive financial searches as the law is changed to allow courts to examine accounts, properties and other assets, government sources said.
Serious Crime Prevention Orders will be extended to suspected gang members before they are even sentenced to restrict their access to the internet, banking and travel.
Some of the measures will see the Terrorism Act 2000 extended to immigration gangs, it is understood, including allowing investigators to copy the contents of suspected smugglers’ electronic devices.
Shadow Home Secretary James Cleverly has previously said people are dying in the Channel as a direct result of Labour’s “incompetence” and “appalling decision-making”.
He added that the abandonment of the Rwanda plan had sent a “big signal” to people smuggling gangs that Britain was “softening” its border defenses, fueling an increase in small boat crossings.
Migrants board a smuggler’s inflatable rubber boat in an attempt to cross the English Channel, on Ecault beach in Saint-Etienne-au-Mont, near Neufchatel-Hardelot, northern France on October 30
A group of people believed to be migrants, including young children, are taken to Dover, Kent, from a Border Police vessel following a small boating incident in the Channel on November 8.
Speaking in Glasgow at the annual conference of Interpol, the international police organisation, Sir Keir announced he was doubling funding for the BSC to £150 million.
A government spokesperson described the smuggling gangs as a “threat to national security.”
Since Labor tore up the Rwanda deal – which was designed to save lives by discouraging crossings – arrivals across the Channel have increased month on month.
More than 17,500 migrants have reached Britain since the election.
The current figure for the year is up 16 percent to almost 32,000, compared to the same point last year.
A series of tragic deaths in the Channel in the past three weeks has taken the 2024 death toll to 59, making it the deadliest year since the crisis began in late 2018.
Part of the government’s additional £75 million for the BSC will set up a new organized immigration crime intelligence unit to identify key developments in police warnings.
The Prime Minister also announced a further £24 million for the Home Office next year to tackle international serious organized crime, including drugs and firearms, trafficking, fraud and exploitation.
Part of the money will fund special prosecutors and operations in the Western Balkans, a major smuggling hub.
Ministers have previously announced that the BSC will have 300 officers, while the National Crime Agency (NCA) will appoint 100 investigators and intelligence officers to focus on human trafficking.
NCA director general Graeme Biggar said: ‘We are committed to doing everything we can to disrupt and dismantle these networks wherever they operate.’
Interpol’s general assembly, held in Britain for the first time in more than fifty years, is the governing body and consists of top law enforcement officials from 196 member states.