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Officials have claimed people smuggling gangs are adapting their tactics
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Well, GB News has exclusively learned that groups are sending fewer small boats across the channel
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but are packing significantly more people onto each one. Yeah, officers say the shift shows enforcement pressure is changing how gangs operate rather than stopping them
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And GB News' home is security editor Mark White is joining us now
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Mark, tell us more. What happened to those mega dinghies? Do you remember those mega dinghies that I think you coined the phrase nationally, didn't you, actually
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I think we did, yes. They are there, not that many of them at the moment
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but obviously they can hold 120, 130 migrants on them. But even the dinghies that I saw, which are about 40 feet long
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11 metres or so in length, regularly have 90-odd or more migrants on board
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as they come across the English Channel. And what the border security officials say to me
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is that they believe that they are having an impact on the people smuggling supply lines
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because they have noticed, they say, a 40% reduction in the number of small boats coming across the English Channel
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Now, a cynic might say, and, you know, you wouldn be too cynical actually for suggesting it that we had terrible weather and that would be responsible for the reduction in small boats coming across the channel Now that might be true and we really only know later in the year
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once we can compare the numbers to the boats, whether actually what we're seeing is a reduction in boats
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but the same level or more migrants coming across crammed on ever fewer boats
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But regardless, even if there is a shortage in the meantime, in terms of the number of boats that are out there
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because of this law enforcement activity, wading, seizing boats and the like
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The people smugglers have had eight years to build up their business model
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They're very robust supply lines. So even if one supply line is disrupted
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it doesn't take them longer than a week or two to be able to get additional and new supply lines back in place
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Is there anything going to stop this, Mark? I mean, we talk about this endlessly, rightly so
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because it is important and people are losing their lives in the channel and sort of like, you know, people are concerned
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about the safety of women and girls in the UK, all the things we come up with
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and yet no-one still seems to do anything. Well, what I was showing this week was the law enforcement side of it
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and how they pore over every single small boat that they seize
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that comes into UK waters. looking for anything that may be evidentially valuable And that then helps them trace individual supply lines and if they get enough evidence
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they can disrupt those supply lines and arrest individuals as they did in Germany
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just last week when four Syrians were arrested, multiple small boats and engines were seized
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and all that was because of some rubber tyre inner tubes that the people smugglers often use as flotation devices
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like makeshift life jackets, they were able to trace that back to a single supply line
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and then were able to raid a unit in Germany and, as I say, disrupt that particular supply line
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It is making a difference, but that alone, the law enforcement approach
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is not going to end the small boats crisis. You need a deterrent
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Because last time I spoke to you, Mark, there was two things that were happening. One is that some of these migrant gangs were moving to Belgium
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and now the Belgian are asking for more money, more capital. But also that the government had announced not that long ago
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that plans that they were going to disrupt manufacturers from China. Has any of that made a difference
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Are we starting to see the results of Labour's policies here? We've not heard much in terms of the China issue
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that might be longer in a gestation period because of working with investigators and trying to build evidence before going in and then raiding any backstreet factories in China But that is an agreement that we told may be a fruit at some time
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As far as Belgium is concerned, it is an area that has in the past been used
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to launch small boats from their beaches. But the Belgians were very tough on this, and that all but ended it
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However, the people smugglers are trying again. So providing the Belgians are equally as tough
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then they probably will head back into the French area and launch again from French beaches
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But as I say, you need a deterrent. You can't just do it in a law enforcement approach
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That's why I think the Conservatives were on the right path in terms of the Rwanda deal
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They never quite got it off the ground, which I, you know, for me, it's all the more puzzling then
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that Rishi Sunak went to the polls when he did, rather than actually giving Rwanda an opportunity to work
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Maybe he didn't trust it himself, but I honestly think if you, for the first month
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or however long it takes to break the business model, sent 100% of the people that arrived from France over to Rwanda
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you would break the business model. Who on earth is going to pay a people smuggler
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if, you know, a few thousand pounds, if you know you're just going to be sent to Africa
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Yep, good point, Mark. Well, thank you so much
