The Chinese ‘super dinghies’ smuggling more migrants into Britain than ever before

Larger, overcrowded vessels are pushing the Channel crisis into dangerous new territory, with record numbers attempting the perilous journey

At 40 feet long and 10 feet wide, they are the people smugglers’ equivalent of an ocean liner – especially when heavily overloaded. Pictured in the Channel for the first time yesterday was a new Chinese-made “super dinghy”, capable of ferrying scores of migrants into Britain in a single crossing.

 

Loaded with around 100 people, the vessel left the French coast on Tuesday – just hours before Sir Keir Starmer’s speech to the Labour Party conference, where he pledged to end the “vile trade” of people trafficking for good. Just three days before, another Chinese-produced super-dinghy had crossed with 125 people – the largest-ever number to make the journey in a single vessel. The arrivals lay bare Labour’s failure to stem the migrant crisis, and make it clear that is no longer strictly a “small boats” problem.

 

“As long as the smugglers know that when people arrive here they can stay for good, they will add to the size of their boats,” says Alp Mehmet, chair of Migration Watch UK. “They know there’s lots of money in it and bigger boats means more money.”

 

The two super dinghies were part of what officials fear may be a new armada of large-scale people-smuggling vessels, defying government efforts to crack down on the sale of boats to trafficking gangs. As part of Sir Keir’s pledge to “smash the gangs”, the Government has worked with EU law enforcement to stop the import of cheap inflatables – which fall short of seaworthiness tests – and asked China to stop exporting outboard engines used by people smugglers. Amid great fanfare in July, the Government also slapped sanctions on a Chinese firm, Weihai Yamar Outdoors Product Co, which was advertising “refugee boats” for sale on its website.

 

However, dinghies of the kind used by traffickers are still available for sale for as little as £1,000 on Alibaba, the Chinese equivalent of Amazon, according to reports this week. And while most no longer advertise themselves as being “migrant” boats, the vendors seem well aware who their market is, with one advert showing a dinghy pulled up on a beach. Critics argue that there is little to stop Chinese vendors simply re-advertising under different names to avoid scrutiny from UK officials.

Most of the Chinese boat makers are in eastern port cities like Qingdao, from where their products are typically shipped to Turkey – itself a hub for people smuggling. They are then taken into the EU via Bulgaria and often warehoused in Germany, where the large influx of Syrian and Afghan migrants from 2015 has bequeathed a vestige of people-smuggling infrastructure, before eventually being moved to northern France. 28 sec

Cracking down on the industry has proved stubbornly difficult. At a global immigration summit in London at Easter, big tech social media firms pledged to stop people smugglers advertising services and wares on their platforms, but in practice enforcement is hard. In December, the National Crime Agency also said it was in “conversations” with Chinese counterparts to restrict the supply of outboard engines. The agency has tried to make its case by pointing out to Beijing that most of the hundreds of people trafficking boats and engines it has seized in operations are Chinese-made. However, with relations between Britain and China somewhat chilly, expectations of co-operation are limited.

 

The passengers on the two super-dinghies – who were picked up by Border Force vessels that intercepted them mid-Channel – bring the total number of small boat migrants to have made it to Britain’s shores this year to nearly 33,500. That equates with figures at the same point in 2022, a year which holds the grim record for the highest number of arrivals.

Since the start of the small boat crisis seven years ago, the number of migrants per vessel has also skyrocketed. In 2018, each boat carried an average of seven passengers; this year, the average is 61.

With the additional numbers also comes additional danger. While most of the passengers are adult males, the gangs will often cram a few women and children on as well, aware of the tactical value of having “vulnerable” people perched on board. This can be used to either deter French police vessels from intercepting them and turning them back, or to prompt British vessels to pick them up. But on the larger boats, the sheer number of people on board means there is often a huge crush – at which point the “women and children first” chivalry is forgotten.

 

On one vessel that tried to bring 70 migrants across in September, French officials reported that three people – including two children – had been found crushed to death at the bottom of the boat. Two Somali women were found dead in similar circumstances on another boat last weekend. The use of much larger craft also deters passing commercial vessels from rescue attempts in genuine emergencies, because of the risks involved in dealing at sea with a large, panicking crowd.

 

As Migration Watch UK pointed out last month, the 182,000 small boat migrants that have crossed the Channel since 2018 now outnumbers the entire active and reserve strength of the 180,000-strong British armed forces. Curbing the flow is central to Sir Keir’s credibility, given that one of his first acts in office was to scrap the Tory government’s Rwanda asylum deal, which was designed to deter crossings in the first place.

Asked about the “super dinghies” this week, Home Office minister Mike Tapp insisted that it showed the Government’s strategy to disrupt supply chains was working.

“We’re having success upstream in intercepting the actual procurement of boat parts, which is why they’re using bigger ones,” he told the BBC.

Critics, however, are yet to be convinced. Tony Smith, a former Border Force head who favours a return to the Rwanda strategy, argues that trying to “smash” people smuggling gangs will be no easier than trying to destroy drug-trafficking networks. As long as there is a demand for their services, he says, there will be those willing to supply boats, no matter how much law enforcement tries to stop them. After all, even the “super dinghies” are small enough to fit into the back of a van or lorry when deflated, so smuggling them is not hard.

“There are efforts underway to stop them being brought into the European Union via Bulgaria [from Turkey], but it’s like putting your finger in a dyke – if you block off one route, another will appear,” he says. “When Border Force seize boats, they do examine them forensically, analysing where the rubber and component parts are from, but it’s pretty clear that there’s still an unending supply, and if the gangs can’t import them from outside the EU, they can try making their own.”

He is also sceptical about the level of co-operation from the French, pointing out that the modern drone-spy technology deployed on the coast around Calais should allow any large dinghies to be stopped well before they put to sea. “These drones can practically tell what kind of sandwich someone is eating,” he says. “Why the French aren’t stopping them I don’t know – it seems they’re just giving it a Gallic shrug.”

Other observers, though, say the Government’s efforts are making some difference. Tuesday Reitano is an expert on human-smuggling at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, a respected research body that deploys investigators around the French coast and in Germany (another transportation hub for Chinese boats).

“One of our researchers started seeing these bigger boats a couple of months ago, but they’re not widespread and it’s hard to say yet if it’s becoming a trend,” she says.

“The people smuggling used to be dominated by five big organised groups, but there’s now rather more fragmentation due to law enforcement from both the UK and France, leading to smaller actors stepping in. It may be that some of them are trying to cheat the system and shove extra people onto their boats, and it may be something of a ‘last push’ before the winter weather makes crossings more difficult.”

She adds, however, that with the fragmentation has come more violence, with gangs increasingly using weapons and even engaged in firefights. That could reflect increasing desperation. Equally, it might simply underline the commonality between the people-smugglers and the drug gangs.

“The analogy with drug trafficking is a good one,” says Smith, who insists the Rwanda strategy, however contentious, would reduce demand long-term. “As long as there are large numbers of people willing to pay to come here, the smuggling will carry on, no matter how much law enforcement you have. The only real way to stop it is to break the business model.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/d7411dddd11ccaf