Migrants smuggled from UK to EU country with ‘taxi service’ | UK | News
Migrants are being smuggled from the UK to Europe, an investigation has found. People-smugglers are taking £1,000 per person to take migrants across the English Channel and into Europe.
The Telegraph found that this opens up free movement across European borders. People can pay an extra £500 to get to Spain using a “taxi service”. The country is offering amnesty for illegal migrants in an attempt to boost its economy.
The newspaper found that adverts for the service appear on social media, resembling holiday promotions with images of tourist hotspots such as Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum and the Brandenburg Gate. Other adverts reportedly target students who have overstayed their visa.
Peter Walsh, a senior researcher at Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, suggested that escaping immigration enforcement could be one of the benefits of going on the journey.
He added that the Home Office has been “ramping up” its enforcement infrastructure and people might be thinking that Europe’s Schengen Zone of free movement means they can travel to whatever country they like the look of.
Out of the 1.2million who have applied to Spain’s amnesty drive, more than 600,000 have been granted temporary employment permits and a one-year renewable residence permit.
It comes as last Thursday (July 30), 60,000 people stormed the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa after swimming up the coast from neighbouring Morocco. At least 67 people are believed to have died via drowning or in a crush at the border. Some 48,000 returned to Morocco by Friday night (July 31).
The NCA is understood to be investigating several people-smuggling gangs taking migrants both ways across the Channel. A source from the NCA said: “The same gangs involved in smuggling people out of the UK illegally are often involved in bringing people in too, which is why targeting them is important.
“These gangs not only threaten the border security of both the UK and France, but also risk the lives of those they transport. We have seen people utilising the services of these groups to circumvent French visa restrictions or evade law enforcement attention.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “We are working closely with France to prevent illegal migration attempts, which exploit national borders. We have delivered a record-breaking increase in disruptions to criminal smuggling activity, including arrests, convictions and seizures, rising by nearly 50 per cent in the year ending March 2026.”
