THIS is the shocking moment a UK phone shop worker offered to take £3,000 in cash in exchange for a small boat migrant crossing.
Criminals are using a network of UK-registered businesses to receive payments for smuggling, a Local documentary has found.
A man appearing to admit that money would be transferred to the smugglers only after a successful crossing Credit: BBC
An inflatable ‘small boat’ carrying migrants crosses the channel (stock) Credit: Getty
The Smuggling Business: Undercover, available on from tonight, has exposed a network dealing with illegal Channel crossings.
These businesses included a mobile phone shop in south-east London, alongside firms in upon Tyne and Cambridgeshire.
Going undercover to staff at the shop in Woolwich, the BBC found that nearly £3,000 in cash could be deposited with them and sent to a smuggler in France.
Footage captured by the outlet’s investigation team shows the undercover researcher posing as the UK-based family member of a migrant attempting to cross the Channel.
One man was caught on camera explaining from behind the counter that the would be transferred to the smugglers only after a successful crossing.
He is heard saying: “If your people do not cross, if he tells me to return your money back to you, I’ll do it.”
The shop worker added: “You can’t count on boats, you never know, God forbid the boat sinks, and all of them [drown].”
Reporters visited the phone shop on three occasions, secretly filming conversations with two workers.
The BBC did not hand over any cash, confirmed a spokesman for the corporation.
When reporters later returned to confront the man pictured at the counter at Afg Mobile Repair, he denied moving money for people smugglers.
“We don’t move money… we have only phone shop,” he said.
Earlier, the BBC had sent an undercover researcher, posing as a migrant trying to cross the Channel illegally, into a migrant camp in Dunkirk.
And within minutes of arriving, two men approached separately, appearing to tout for rival gangs.
One took the researcher to meet a smuggler calling himself Zia, who said he could book a place on a small boat crossing.
The second tout gave the BBC the phone number of a smuggler called Ahmad, who it was claimed had been operating out of northern France for more than five years.
On the phone, Ahmad told the undercover researcher they could pay via one of three UK businesses, including the South-East London shop.
Ahmad reportedly said the crossing would cost £2,700 for two people.
The mobile phone shop and the other two UK firms are all listed at , the government’s official registry of businesses.
The investigations team verified that Ahmad had given the correct bank details for both the Newcastle and Cambridgeshire firms.
Ahmad also provided details of several businesses in where payments could be made in cash, including a car wash in Antwerp, , and a restaurant in Paris.
When confronted on the phone by the undercover researcher at the BBC, Ahmad denied any involvement in people smuggling.
Zia did not respond to repeated requests to comment.
Migration minister Mike Tapp MP told the team there is “a lot of investigative work that goes on behind the scenes”, in part, looking at money transfers.
Asked about smuggler Ahmad’s use of UK-registered companies’ bank accounts, Tapp says he would “love to see more” of the results of our investigation but couldn’t “go into any detail on that”.
Criminal gangs are agile and continuously changing their methods, he says, and “it’s important we keep up with that and we’re continuously pressing for that”.
Meanwhile, the National Crime Agency deputy director Dan Cannatella-Barcroft said that “tackling the criminal networks behind people smuggling remains a top priority and the NCA is devoting more resources to it than ever”.
He said: “We are in no doubt that we are making the UK a more difficult place for them to target and operate in.”
The deputy director added that there are about 100 active NCA investigations into the “top tier of gangs and individuals involved”.
The Home Office says it is working relentlessly with European partners to dismantle the criminal networks behind dangerous small boat crossings.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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