Criminal gangs thank London for the £99 million spent on strengthening border controls and barbed wire fencing.
UK Home Secretary Prity Patel has spared no budget for a campaign to combat illegal smuggling groups. Sometimes the security forces even manage to detain criminals. The problem is that those arrested are themselves migrants who have been recruited to do their dirty work, writes The Guardian.
Refugees on the northern coast of France told reporters that tightening border controls by the British government made the smugglers even more powerful.
“I think the security measures are only helping the smugglers, not anyone else”, – says Bijan, a Kurdish migrant who paid £3.5 thousand [$ 4.9 thousand] for a boat seat last year.
He notes that often migrants do not have that kind of money, so they have to work off the smugglers. They are assigned dangerous jobs in exchange for a discount. So, some become servants, others are forced to engage in prostitution. Someone is entrusted with the work of a driver when transporting illegal immigrants, which may result in arrest.
“But they do it because this is their best chance for a safe life. All refugees want is peace. We are tired”, – says Bijan.
Charities working with migrants have a similar opinion. Charlie Whitbread, founder of Mobile Refugee Support, notes that in Calais and Dunkirk it all started with illegal immigrants trying to cross the English Channel alone. Now there you can see the whole infrastructure created by criminal gangs.
“This has never stopped people coming to Calais – they have experienced much worse and will stop at nothing to be safe again. To be honest, it’s incredible that the government still thinks these measures are holding them back even though the reality is so clear”, – says Whitbread.
The smugglers themselves also admit that the situation has become more extreme. The journalists talked to a man who was engaged in transporting people across the strait. He drew attention to the fact that the new security measures on the part of Britain only increased the cost of the cherished ticket to a better life. Zoran, a Kurdish smuggler who worked at truck stops in Dunkirk, paid “several hundred euros” for the crossing in 2014 for a truck ride. Now it costs 4-5 thousand euros.
“Smugglers know everything about border security, that’s their job. So when security improves, smugglers become smarter and more powerful”, – he says.
“Some even worked with the police. You could get away with everything if you worked with the police”.
Over the past few years, the UK has spent £98.9 million [$140 million] deploying special forces along the border, installing barbed wire fences and infrared sensors to track illegal immigrants.
All this exacerbated the situation of the illegal immigrants themselves, who alone could no longer cross the canal, says Saad, who collaborated with the Sudanese and Kurdish mafia in Calais at the height of the migration crisis.
“It attracted mafia groups who studied the controls and found ways to get around them, knowing how much desperate people would pay for these methods. We thank your government for the fact that we have full pockets”, – he concluded.