meeting the smugglers behind illegal Channel crossings

The year 2024 records a sad record: 51 migrants have died since January trying to cross the Channel to England. franceinfo infiltrated a migrant camp and was able to listen to smugglers.

It’s only 50 kilometers, yet the area has never been so deadly. Four migrants, including a two-year-old child, died during two attempts to cross the Channel to England on Saturday October 5, bringing the number of deaths among migrants to 51 in 2024, which was already a record year. Behind this tragedy, shattered lives and hopes. And often smugglers who take advantage of this misery and this quest for El Dorado.

To obtain testimonies from smugglers, one of the only ways is to pose as a migrant who wants to cross the Channel. Nazif, an Afghan interpreter for franceinfo, was equipped with a hidden microphone to infiltrate a migrant camp where traffickers operate. And it all starts Grande-Synthe, in Pas-de-Calais, in the parking lot of a shopping center. DDozens of exiles meet there, a few steps from several migrant camps, right next door. They are all waiting to be able to embark to reach the shores of England.

Nazif very quickly meets fellow Afghans. One of them suggests that he go see a smuggler a little further away. At the bottom ofan embankment, a few tents are pitched, with stoves and pots. There, migrants are making a fire while smoking weed and so they offer to make a “a game“: this is the expression used by most migrants, to make a “game” means “to attempt a crossing”.

“They told me that tomorrow we have a ‘game’, so to leave tomorrow to cross the borderreports Nazif. I was told that the network is in the hands of the Kurds. The price is 1,100 and 1,600, they told me.”

“There are two types of ‘games’: with 80 people in the boat, or 50 people.”

Nazif, infiltrated by smugglers

franceinfo

Nazif leaves this first camp and meets half an hour later, 200 meters away, another smuggler, also Afghan, who is reassuring. “Here there are several smugglershe explains. They are intermediaries, they do not work well. Whereas for me, the Kurds bring the boat directly to me and I bring the people on board myself. Regarding the number of people, they fill the boats with 80, 85, 90 people. Tomorrow, God willing, I’m making a crossing so if you want to go, tell me.”

Within two hours, Nazif was able to meet two smugglers to return to the UK illegally. “It’s actually easy to come there, he says. I didn’t know anyone and, as he said, if things go well, I’ll be in Britain tomorrow.”

This disconcerting ease of crossing the channel on a “small boat” proves that the network is very well structured. “They are all here, quietly, we can go and talk with them, our guide is surprised. If we agree, they will give you the place and date, or you can stay with them until departure.”

“I’ll take 1,500 euros and I guarantee that there won’t be more than 50 people in the boat.”

A smuggler in Nazif

franceinfo

To counter this organization, the police have dedicated a specialized service,OLTIM – the Office for Combating Smuggling of Migrants. Cre-established after the disappearance of 27 people in November 2021, it was Fernand Gontier, former central director of the border police, who was at the origin: “It can be done day and night, and in all seasons. In addition, there is a strategy that is practiced in all trafficking, whether it is cocaine or anything else. : it is a question of saturating the police system.“

Thus, several boat departures are organized at the same time. LThe material is purchased in China, transits through Turkey then Germany, the rear base of this traffic. Che boats are overloaded and while people are at risk of drowning first, they can also be trampled. “Unfortunately, I think there will be moredeplores Fernand Gontier. The system is strengthening on both sides of this border and risk-taking will increase.”

“There is a form of escalation, of overbidding in means.”

Fernand Gontier, former central director of the border police

at franceinfo

And if migrants have enough to finance their crossing, those who have nothing or not enough sometimes try to build a raft, at the risk of being “beat up”continues Fernand Gontier. Migrants must go through the network; smugglers prohibit them from getting into a truck or organizing their crossing themselves. Since the start of the year, around sixty networks have been dismantled and some 200 smugglers have been arrested in flagrante delicto in Pas-de-Calais.

These smugglers are of different kinds: cthose who manage the networks from afar are therefore Kurds, mainly Iraqi or Syrian. IThey live in Germany, manage international traffic and generate hundreds of thousands of euros. But itthey who are arrested in flagrante delicto explain to the court that they are migrants themselves. They say that, due to lack of money, they have “had to enter the network” to finance the crossing.

“That’s what they tell us, but we have no information that allows us to verify itdeclares Guirec Le Bras, public prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer. This is a line of defense that is often opposed to us. In August, a case went to trial where we had someone who for 6 months, had made a certain number of passages, he was not a poor person…”

At the same time, some crossings go through the Channel Tunnel, but it is much more expensive: between 3,000 and 5,000 euros. IThere are also French people who are convicted, but it is very rare. As for the penalties incurred,according to our information, last month, a repeat offender was sentenced to 8 years in prison for organizing migrant smuggling from his prison cell. He smuggled Vietnamese people into cars hidden in suitcases.