Oversized and dangerous inflatable dinghies are being made-to-order in Turkey to ship huge numbers of illegal immigrants across the English Channel, The Epoch Times has found.
Unscrupulous Turkish traders are targeting the people smuggling market and cashing in on the migrant crisis, even brazenly advertising the unsafe air-inflated boats for sale online.
An investigation by The Epoch Times reveals how one legitimate PVC business, based in Istanbul, offers a bespoke service to smugglers wanting to pack as many migrants as possible onto the floating death traps.
For 4,000 euros (£3,400), the company—whose main business is making windows and doors—will manufacture a 15-metre boat with a wooden floor, and have it exported to France within seven days.
The well-known business, which also has offices in Egypt, posts videos and pictures to Facebook of the huge dinghies being made in its workshop.
One recent social media advertisement posted to an English-speaking export group, included an image of a newly made boat which it said can include “aluminum floors or wooden floors or with inflatable deck or even without.”
The company said it could provide “all boat accessories” originally made in Turkey, China, or Canada. The post included the company’s web address, email contact, and a WhatsApp business number for further enquiries.
Our reporter made contact with the PVC firm, posing as smuggler wanting to buy one of the huge dinghies with the sole intention of using it to traffic migrants from France to the UK.
Within minutes of sending a message to the firm’s WhatsApp account, a sales agent replied.
Unsafe
When asked about the maximum size of inflatable boat it could manufacture, the agent said the company made dinghies up to 10 metres long.This, according to to the employee, could “safely” carry up to 20 people.
When told that a bigger boat was required to fit up to 50 people—around the average number of migrants being crammed per boat in Channel crossings this year—the sales agent replied, “You need a 15 meter boat with wooden floor.”
“You can make a change like .. specifications can be different. Baloon or tube can be 90 cm [sic].”
They added, “The cost will be much more 4000 Euro.”
According to the employee, the company has previously shipped similar boats to England, Libya, and Algeria.
It could also provide a foot pump, at an extra cost of 40 euros (£34), which will inflate the dinghy “within half an hour.”
Asked how long it would take to manufacture, our reporter was told seven days after payment is received, with arrival in its final destination of France within three days.
After providing the company with an email address, our reporter was sent an “invoice” with details of how to make the 4,000 euro payment.
Shockingly, the company used an image of an inflatable boat packed with dozens of migrants making its way across water, alongside details of the dinghy order.
It is unclear when and where the picture was taken.
Record High
The revelations come as the UK recorded the highest number of migrants arriving in small boats in a single day this year.On Saturday, 872 migrant arrivals were intercepted by authorities after making their way from France on just 15 boats—an average of 58 people per boat.
The previous high for 2023 was when 756 people made the crossing on Aug. 10.
The figures were released just weeks after six migrants died after their boat—carrying over 60 people—sank in the Channel just off the French coast.
Fifty-nine people—many of them Afghans—were rescued by French and British coastguards, officials said at the time.
Available data show that the average number of illegal immigrants arriving per boat has jumped year on year, with an average of 28 per boat in 2021 to 41 in 2022.
Figures for August alone show a record high of the number of migrants crossing the Channel per boat.
Some 5,369 people made the journey in 102 boats, an average of around 53 migrants per vessel.
This was the highest monthly average since records began in 2018, according to analysis of provisional government data.
It suggests the boats are getting bigger, with crooked companies in China being blamed on manufacturing the huge dinghies and exporting them to Belgian ports such as Zeebrugge and Ostend before being taken by people smugglers elsewhere.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said it is aware of unscrupulous traders in Turkey also cashing in on the migrant misery.
“We know that many of these vessels are manufactured in China and far Europe where they are made specifically for the use of people smugglers,” an NCA spokesperson said.
“There is no other commercial use for these types of boats, which don’t meet European safety regulations and are not suitable for sea crossings.”
Last month, the UK and Turkey agreed a new deal to disrupt people smuggling gangs and tackle illegal migration.
The partnership includes a “centre of excellence” in Turkey to strengthen collaboration and increase intelligence-sharing between enforcement agencies.
The government said it would help to disrupt the supply chain of small boats parts through Europe.
But it does not include a deal to return failed Turkish asylum seekers, whose numbers as illegal small boats arrivals have risen this year.
In the first seven months of 2023, 1,486 Turkish nationals crossed the Channel to the UK by small boat, becoming the second most common nationality to do so behind Afghans, according to Home Office figures.
There has been a steady increase in Turkish arrivals since 2022, after the country suffered a devastating earthquake which left an estimated 1.5 million people homeless.
No Repercussions
Lee West, an ex-Royal Marines Commando who went undercover in a French migrant camp, says at present, there are no repercussions for companies like those in Turkey behind the manufacturing of the death trap boats.“They know that if that boat capsizes in the English Channel after they’ve said to the smugglers, ‘yeah you can put 40 people on it,’ the smugglers aren’t going to grass them up,” he told The Epoch Times.
“So there’s there’s not going to be any repercussions to the people who sold that boat.
“Because obviously everything involved in the smuggling is illegal, so they can sell the boats and know that there’s not going to be any repercussions to them.”
The best-selling author, who posed as a migrant before crossing the Channel in a dinghy, said his experience of people smuggling is that “it’s all about the money.”
“It’s big business and it’s not a new thing. They’ve been doing it for years pulling UK’s pants down by getting across,” he said.
“Talking to the guys that we spoke to, it was just about money and if they could get more money out of people, they will.
“They don’t care about lives, they don’t care about safety. Obviously, they’re not regulated by anybody.”
Mr. West, who completed four tours of Iraq and Afghanistan during his 17-year military career, spent a week among migrants in the Calais jungle before buying a dinghy and illegally crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
He said he wanted to see just how easy it was for the tens of thousands who have made the crossing.
While spending time in the migrant camps, he came face to face with people smugglers.
However, he found it wasn’t just criminal gangs taking advantage of those wanting to make the perilous journey.
“An activist group, who actively believe that everyone should be able to go wherever they want and there shouldn’t be any borders, were actively—and they told us in our face—‘we’re here to get them across the border and help them fill out the paperwork when they get there so that they’re well prepared and they get what they want.’
“So we did see the groups involved in facilitating the people from from the point of the camps to getting onto a boat.”
