Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A BBC investigation has exposed the French and UK operations of a powerful and violent smuggling gang taking people across the English Channel in small boats. A reporter, posing as a migrant wanting to cross, helped us gain unprecedented access to the smugglers’ notorious forest hideout in northern France – an area plagued by armed battles between rival gangs. Secret filming at a major UK railway station also captured associates of the gang collecting cash payments to secure migrant places on illegal Channel crossings. Two men met us on separate occasions on the busy concourse at Birmingham’s New Street Station to collect envelopes containing hundreds of pounds. Multiple sources have described how gang leaders, who keep one step ahead of the authorities by changing mobile phone numbers and the gang’s name, subjected their henchmen and migrants to violent beatings.” (08/05/25)