People smugglers offering a 100% safety guarantee and a competition to win 500 euros are among almost 12,000 adverts enticing migrants to use their services that have taken down from social media.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) has stepped up efforts to disrupt the organised gangs using online platforms to recruit migrants to cross the Channel on small boats.
A plan to understand how criminals exploit victims desperate to come to the UK was launched in December 2021 with internet giants including X, TikTok, YouTube and Meta – the owner of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.
Around 3,300 posts, pages or accounts were removed or suspended by April 2023, while a blitz over the last year has seen almost 9,000 taken down – a total of almost 12,000 by the end of June.
One advert featuring the image of a speedboat’s two outboard motors says in Albanian: “We take people to the UK by speedboat. It is a done deal within 45 minutes.
“The crossing is 100% guaranteed (safe). Do not waste [this opportunity]. Soon we will be ready [to depart]. Write privately.”
Another, showing a map overlaid with a red line from Albania to the Channel, offers “100% guaranteed (safe) journeys with us”, adding: “Recommend our journeys to your friend and win 500 euros.”
One post in Pashto, the official language of Afghanistan, says: “Guaranteed game to France…Germany… Belgium… London by God’s will.”
And another in Farsi, spoken in Iran, and Darsi, spoken in Afghanistan, advertises a “guaranteed Schengen visa” from 750 euros, a visa “without the return guarantee” from 6,000 euros and a “hotel voucher with letterhead” for 100 euros.
Border Force Hurricane carrying migrants on Thursday 18 July 2024
The NCA’s organised immigration crime threat lead, Dan Barcroft, said: “Social media is key to how these organised crime groups operate, so these takedowns have a direct effect on disrupting their operations and criminal activity.
“We have seen instances of them having to change their tactics as a result, and the last few months have seen us take direct action against individuals suspected of posting this type of material.”
In April four Vietnamese nationals were arrested in the UK as part of a major investigation with the French authorities into alleged people smugglers advertising small boats crossings on Facebook.
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An Iraqi national, also suspected of promoting crossings on social media, was arrested and charged in May.
Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle said: “This work is immensely important, and we will do everything in our power to crack down on the criminals who brazenly promote their people-smuggling businesses online and use social media to profit from human misery.”
It comes after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper warned high levels of small boat journeys across the Channel are likely to continue over the summer as Home Office figures showed nearly 1,500 migrants made the crossing in a single week.
She has been setting out the new Labour government’s plans to tackle people-smuggling gangs by setting up a Border Command Unit and working more closely with European countries.
An overhaul of the asylum system includes an end to using the Bibby Stockholm barge to house migrants and the scrapping of the previous government’s stalled scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.