Smugglers offer ‘package deals’ to UK as Channel crossings top 150,000 since 2018

People smugglers are offering migrants crossing the Channel “package deals” including travel, accommodation and a job to boost business, it has emerged.

As Labour and the Conservatives trade blows over migration, with figures confirming more than 150,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats in the last seven years, Albanian gangs are urging hopeful migrants to take advantage of “messy and busy” airports over Christmas to enter the UK on stolen passports.

Adverts on TikTok reportedly show TV-style marketing for packages costing as little as £2,500, payable on arrival in Dover, which included “specialised people” waiting to pick migrants up, take them to rental properties and find them black market jobs paying cash.

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Messages seen by The Times showed one smuggler telling a potential migrant they could fly him and his fiancée to the UK, find a house to rent for £1,000 a month in London and “simple work”, all for a £12,000 fee. The message included photos of the home in the style of an online estate agent.

It came as Boxing Day saw 407 people make the journey in 10 boats, according to Home Office figures published on Friday, while photographs suggested more people had made the crossing on December 27.

Combined with the 451 people who crossed the Channel on Christmas Day, that brought the total since January 1 2018 to 150,243 – equivalent to the population of Cambridge.

A Home Office source sought to blame the previous government for the figures, saying: “The Tories left an appalling legacy of broken border security.

“We are fixing the foundations with a new Border Security Command, 100 new specialist investigators and new agreements with Europe and beyond to break up the business models of the evil criminal gangs making millions from small boat crossings.

“We are increasing removals of those with no right to be here and are clamping down on illegal working.”

But shadow home secretary Chris Philp said it was “an insult that Labour has allowed 858 illegal immigrants into the country on Christmas Day and Boxing Day”.

Mr Philp added: “By scrapping the Rwanda deterrent before it started, Labour has let us down. We saw removals deterrents work in Australia.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has put international co-operation with law enforcement agencies in Europe at the heart of his bid to cut the number of arrivals, having promised to “smash the gangs” smuggling people across the Channel during this year’s election.

More than 22,324 people have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel since Sir Keir walked into Number 10 when Labour won the election in July, up 24% on the same period in 2023 but down 32% on the record year of 2022.

So far this year, 35,898 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel, provisional Home Office figures show.

This is up 22% on this time last year, but down 22% on 2022.

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Days in which the wind and wave levels in the Channel are the most conducive to crossings are referred to as “red days”, and a period earlier in the autumn saw the highest concentration of red days in a month, with 26 out of 31 days between October 11 and November 10.

The second half of 2024 has also already seen more red days than the same period in 2023.

Meanwhile, the National Crime Agency said it is leading about 70 live investigations into organised immigration crime or human trafficking.

Some 50 people have died while trying to cross the Channel this year, according to incidents recorded by the French coastguard, in what is considered the deadliest year since the crisis unfolded.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has also reported several more migrant deaths believed to be linked to crossing attempts so far in 2024.

The number of migrants crossing the Channel has steadily increased since 299 people were detected in 2018.

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In December of that year, then-home secretary Sajid Javid cut short a Christmas break to return to the UK and take charge of the unfolding crisis.

He declared a “major incident” in the wake of 40 migrants making the journey on Christmas Day and 12 more arriving days later.

There were 1,843 crossings recorded in 2019 and 8,466 in 2020, according to the Home Office.

A record 45,774 people made the journey in 2022 compared with the 28,526 recorded for the whole of 2021.

In 2023, 29,437 people arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.

“The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.”