Channel crossings: People smugglers are ‘settling in Britain, renting houses and investing profits in UK businesses’

Published

2 years ago

March 6, 2023

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An individual at the heart of cross-Channel people-smuggling has revealed to Sky News that most smugglers choose to settle in Britain and invest their profits here.

The man, whose identity we will not reveal, provides details on how smugglers operate, how they justify their criminality, their business model, their relationship with the French police and how smuggling could be affected by the government’s plans to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

In just a few days, the government is set to publish new laws aiming to stop small boats crossing the Channel, with illegal migration remaining one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s priorities.

In full:
Q&A with people smuggler

This is the first time a cross-Channel people smuggler has agreed to a face-to-face television interview. The man, who is Kurdish, spoke to Sky News in conditions of complete secrecy.

The man, who we refer to as Garmiyani, said: “Three-quarters of the smugglers are in Britain. The money that they make here [in northern France], they invest in businesses there – in Britain. They live there, life is easier.

“Regardless of their nationalities, three-quarters of the smugglers live in the UK. They are happier there. They rent houses under someone else’s name and drive cars without a licence.”

Garmiyani said he knew about the British government’s desire to break the business model of people smuggling and the proposal to send arrivals to Rwanda, but seemed unperturbed.

He said: “I swear even if they send people to the Amazon, people will come to Britain – it’s their wish to go to Britain.

“It will decrease but not to the extent that refugees won’t come to Britain. People will still try. People will still come.”

He said that smugglers play “hide and seek” with the French police as they try to launch boats from the beaches.

“The police watch them, and they also watch the police,” he said. “Smugglers hide and wait until the police have gone and then they do their job [launching the boats], which takes around half an hour.”

He rejected the claim that the French police were too laid back in their approach, saying “no, that does not happen…they do their job and arrest people.

“It is becoming more difficult… In the past, it was just [migrants hiding on] trucks. Now the police know from which points they send people, so they have identified the locations.”

Garmiyani said that smugglers did not see themselves as carrying out crimes, but rather as operating a business.

He said: “We are working and making money – even helping people. Smugglers don’t see it as smuggling. They see it as another job, like working in a restaurant or a barbershop. Our job is transferring people to the other side.”

He said that migrants arriving at the camps near Calais and Dunkirk would quickly be introduced to intermediaries acting on behalf of smugglers, and would then choose which to go with.

“If there are too many migrants, prices go up. If the numbers of people are low then the prices drop. It goes from €500 to €2,500.”

He also said smugglers would charge different prices depending on the nationality of the migrant: “Albanians pay more, Pakistanis pay more.”

In northern France, smugglers are people of the shadows.

They are blamed for the rising number of asylum-seekers crossing the Channel in small boats. Blamed, too, for the dozens of people who have died in accidents.

In the migrant camps that spring up around the coast they are always mentioned, but never seen or identified. And until now, nobody has been able to sit down and talk to one of them.

Setting up the interview took a long time and required intermediaries, trust and persuasion. And no, we didn’t pay him to talk to us.

He is Kurdish and I would guess he’s aged in his early 30s. He had a curious blend of nervousness and self-confidence. I suspect that there is an art to being unobtrusive to most, but memorable to those that you want to remember you.

He smiled when I asked him whether he would be happy to put a family member on board one of these dinghies. He asked me why I was asking that question here, in France, when “three-quarters of the smugglers are in Britain”.

His assertion was that the boat trip across the Channel was easy compared to these migrants’ other experiences.

The insights were compelling – the prices, the way in which middlemen connected migrants with smugglers, and the grudging respect for the French police.

He left as he arrived – quietly, with no flourish. A handshake, a word of thanks, and he was gone. Apparently, he had a busy evening ahead of him – the winds were low, and the sea was calm. The boats would be launching in a few hours.

He claimed that some cross-Channel journeys are organised by families who club together to buy their own boat and engine, and added that many smugglers waste their profits on “alcohol, drugs and gambling”.

But he insisted that he only allowed boats to leave when the winds were light. He was scathing about others, including the people who arranged the Channel crossing in late 2021 that resulted in the death of 31 migrants.

“Some of the smugglers have no conscience,” he said. “They are mafias, not smugglers, and do it only for the money.

“They know the weather is not good but they still play with people’s lives. That night of the incident was one of those nights.

“The ones who did it – they have no heart.”

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

56 mins ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

4 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

5 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.