People Smuggling Gangs Making Up to £1.6 Million Per Day From English Channel Boat Migrants

People smuggling gangs operating on both sides of the English Channel are making up to £1.6 million per day helping illegal boat migrants break into Britain, an analysis has found.

Human trafficking networks are charging each illegal migrant £4,000 on average to facilitate their journey across the Channel from the beaches of France to the shores of Dover, according to an analysis from the Labour Party citing French law enforcement sources.

Earlier this month, on March 4th, 401 illegals successfully reached British soil in rubber dinghies, meaning that if they paid the standard rate to their smugglers, the gangs would have made £1.6 million on just that one day, the Daily Mail reports.

Since Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was installed in office a year and a half ago, more than 40,000 migrants arrived in the UK illegally via the Channel route, meaning that people smugglers may have earned up to £10.6 million during Sunak’s tenure, despite him vowing to the public to “stop the boats”.

The true scale of the profits made by such gangs may be much higher, however, with previous reports claiming that many illegals sign effective slave labour “pacts” with smugglers if they don’t have the cash upfront for the journey.

Without any legal standing, migrants effectively become the “property” of black market operators, who force them to work in places such as restaurants, laundrettes, and even cannabis farms in Britain to pay off their debts, a process which could last years and ultimately net the gangs even more money.

Sunak has mostly rested his hopes on deterring boat migration on a scheme to send illegals who cross the Channel to have their asylum claims processed in the East African nation of Rwanda, rather than putting them up in hotels across Britain as has become the norm following the Chinese coronavirus crisis.

The scheme has been mired in legal challenges for nearly two years, with zero illegals being sent to the country during the interim. An updated version of the legislation is set to return to the House of Commons this week. Yet critics claim that the bill is still fundamentally flawed, arguing that because the government refuses to leave the EU-adjacent European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), its associated court could still block removal flights to Rwanda as it did in 2022.

Commenting on the analysis of people smuggling operations, Labour Party Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The criminal smuggling gangs are making huge profits from this horrific trade.

“Rather than wasting billions on the Rwanda gimmick, Labour would crack down on the smuggling gangs running small boats, establishing a cross-border policing unit to go after them upstream and smash their business model.”

However, it is unclear how effective a “crackdown” on people smugglers would be without being combined with a strong system of removals or a return the boats strategy, given that the UK has poured hundreds of millions into such policing efforts.

Just last year, the government of Rishi Sunak committed to sending £478 million (€541 million) to France over the next three years to fund more policing of the French coastline. This was on top of over £300 million sent to France over the past decade. Nevertheless, over 28,000 illegals successfully reached British beaches last year.

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