Tonight:
9°c
Calais people smugglers 'more likely to be British'
Peter Allen in Paris03.08.09
People smugglers arrested in Calais are increasingly likely to be British, new figures reveal today.
British gangsters are beginning to target the port town in northern France, charging rough sleepers up to £1,000 for an illegal passage to England. For years foreigners from Eastern Europe, central Asia and the Indian subcontinent dominated the trade.
"While foreign gangs are still very much at large, the British are increasingly profiting from getting illegal migrants into their own country," a French government source said.
Figures released by the country's immigration ministry today showed that 42 of the 235 people smugglers arrested in Calais over the first six months of this year were British - the largest European nationality group followed by 32 French, 20 Germans, and 50 from other EU countries. The rest were from countries including Ukraine, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Convictions were secured against just 50, mainly because of the failure of witnesses to testify. Many of those arrested were believed to be part of organised crime syndicates involved in cross-Channel drugs running and money laundering rackets. Last week it emerged that the number of migrants arrested trying to get into Britain illegally from Calais shot up by 76 per cent this year, to 13,715.
A French immigration ministry spokesman said: "Efforts are being made with British authorities to remove the problem of illegal immigration through Calais."
Reader views (3)
well that's narrowed it down a bit. Britons eh ? when anyone who wants one and half of somalia holds a British passport the term 'Briton' has little meaning these days. 'Britons' fight in Afghanistan against UK soldiers, 'Britons' blow tubes and buses up and smuggle drugs worldwide. Then they become Britons when it suits them.
- Squiz, Islington
Crooks are crooks wherever they come from. By definition, they couldn't care less if there is an end effect for their lawlessness, they want only the immediate cash benefits from a given situation. They look for weaknesses and then go full ahead to exploit them. It doesn't matter where they come from, it is where they are breaking laws that they need to be brought to face justice. Calais is French. It's that responsibility thing.
- Rogan, Irving
While those arreseted may have British or EU nationality could it just be that they are actually passport holders, legal or illegal?
Are they necessarily native-born Europeans?
I doubt it somehow?
- Russell, London
