By American Renaissance | Created at 2024-10-29 22:52:02 | Updated at 2024-10-31 01:16:48
1 day ago
Posted on October 29, 2024
Zoltan Kottasz, European Conservative, October 29, 2024
Human smugglers, who send illegal migrants across the English Channel, are using Germany as their base, with the western city of Essen acting as a major hub, according to an investigation by the BBC.
An undercover journalist, posing as a migrant wanting to get to the United Kingdom, met two smugglers in Essen. They said it costs €15,000 for the whole “package”—an inflatable dinghy with an outboard motor, and sixty life jackets. For that price, the smugglers would deliver the boat from Germany to the shores of northern France, somewhere near Calais.
For about €8,000, the migrant can pick up the boat himself at a warehouse in Essen and drive it to northern France independently. However, if he gets caught, it’s his own problem.
According to the investigative report, Germany has become a hub for people smugglers for the storage of boats and engines eventually used in Channel crossings. The smugglers told the BBC journalist that they have about ten warehouses in the Essen area, so if the police raid one of them, the damage caused is not significant enough to disrupt operations.
The reason Germany, and especially Essen, has become a hub for smuggling networks is that many migrants pass through it or live in the city. Essen is just a four- to five-hour drive from the Calais area—close enough to get boats there fast, but not too close to the more heavily monitored beaches of northern France.
Another factor is that it is not technically illegal in Germany to facilitate people smuggling if it is to a country outside the European Union. Since Brexit, the UK is considered outside the EU.
Despite previous Conservative governments and the current Labour government in the UK promising to “stop the boats” that carry illegal migrants from crossing the English Channel, the number of illegal crossings keeps on climbing.
According to the Migration Watch UK think tank, almost 30,000 illegal migrants have arrived on small boats this year, which is already more than the 29,437 registered in the whole of 2023. In 2018 the number of illegal crossings stood at just 299, and the highest number to date was 45,744 in 2022.
