The brazen Brit traffickers using astonishing legal loophole to ship in migrants for £12k a head to work on YOUR street
WITH his easy-going charm, former British Army soldier Nick fitted in with the wealthy yacht owners, sipping gin and tonics on their decks at Ramsgate Marina.
Having grown up sailing in the Channel with his dad, he was thrilled with the 21ft yacht he had recently bought and loved to take it out at night, enjoying the peace and freedom he experienced under the stars.
But these trips were fraught with danger — because amiable, good- humoured Nick was actually a secret people-smuggler on his way to pick up illegal migrants at Dunkirk in France to bring them to the UK.
And in choosing Ramsgate, Britain’s only royal harbour, he was deliberately flouting the law under the noses of the UK Border Force personnel who are based there.
Nick’s exploits are a far cry from the image of hazardous crossings that we see in the news, with migrants packed on to flimsy inflatable rafts.
In fact it was all plain sailing until he was eventually rumbled.
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But Nick says that the crossings by yacht that he pioneered are continuing to happen every day from marinas around the country.
Nick, not his real name, tells his story to investigative journalist Annabel Deas in the ten-part BBC Radio 4 series Shadow World: The Smuggler.
Annabel says: “We all think we know who people-smugglers are — they are from far-away countries with different values and ideas, people who can somehow justify making money out of desperate migrants.
Good money
“At least, that’s who I thought they were. But what if some of the people illegally smuggling migrants into the UK are actually from here — British people-smugglers with an intimate knowledge of our borders?”
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Nick had unexpectedly become a people-smuggler in 2009 after his work as a self-employed builder dried up and his Albanian employee, Matt, told him he could make easy money as a white man with a UK passport.
With a baby on the way, Nick was desperate, and soon discovered how easy it was to take his car on to the ferry at Dover, collect a paying illegal Albanian migrant at Dunkirk, hide them in the boot, then set off on the return journey.
Once on the ferry, he would wait for everyone to leave the car deck, then release the man from the boot before finding a suitable lorry for the migrant to cut a hole in the tarpaulin and hide inside.
At Dover he would send a photo and registration plate of the lorry to the Albanian gang who were keeping watch, then drive through passport control — and his work was done.
Following the lorry and getting the immigrant out of it was somebody else’s business.
Nick would pocket £3,500 for his “day trip to France”.
He says: “It was so easy. I did it many times and made good money.”
His girlfriend broke up with him a few months before their baby was born, but by then Nick was enjoying the lifestyle.
However, after several successful runs, his luck ran out when his car was pulled over to be checked at Dunkirk, and a migrant was found hidden in the boot.
Nick, who served with the Royal Engineers, feigned surprise.
But the authorities saw through it, and he served five months in a French prison — a relatively short sentence because prosecutors were unaware that he was a seasoned people-smuggler.
While in jail, he heard that his former employee Matt had also been caught smuggling after a migrant unexpectedly jumped out of a lorry after leaving Dover and got his foot caught in the wheel.
The police were called and their investigation led to a seven-year jail term for Matt.
Meanwhile, Nick returned to Britain after serving his time in France, and began trying to get work as a decorator.
But within days he was visited by a mysterious man and woman who refused to identify themselves.
He recalls: “They showed me a long list of ferry bookings from Dunkirk to Dover, all booked under my name, and said, ‘You’re going to help us or we’re going to hold you responsible for some of these’. I had a feeling they were from .”
So for a time in 2015 he acted as an undercover informant, providing details about the workings of the Albanian gang who had employed him — before one day the arrangement suddenly ended.
He says: “The guy just said, ‘Thank you for your help but we don’t need it any more’. And that was it.”
After Matt was granted early release in 2017, he contacted Nick about the Albanian gang’s new operation, brokered by a glamorous, middle-aged Vietnamese woman called Lin, who wanted to smuggle in her fellow countrymen to work on the 35 cannabis farms she had set up around the UK.
This time Nick would receive £12,000 per migrant — almost four times the previous rate. It was too tempting to turn down.
No longer able to book ferry crossings without alerting the authorities, he came up with the idea of using a sailing boat.
It was so easy. I did it many times and made good money
Nick on his ferry smuggling career
He persuaded a sceptical Matt to buy a boat with him, then set about finding the perfect route, studying tidal charts and maps.
Eventually he settled on Ramsgate, the Kent port where the UK Border Force has a base.
Nick says: “I chose it so I could monitor them. It’s a big marina and difficult to watch everyone and there would be several shifts of observers.
“Also, if you pretend that you are one of the wealthy owners, who can sit around on boats, then you will fit in. And I do that well.”
Lucy Moreton, of the Union for Borders, Immigration and Customs, representing frontline immigration staff, says: “We know that small boats in and around the UK don’t declare who they are or who they’ve got on board and don’t say where they are going. They don’t have to — the law doesn’t require them to do that.
Arrested and charged
“Generally they are an independent bunch and the vast majority are completely law-abiding and just want to go out and sail around. But that does leave an exploitable loophole for individuals who want to do harm.
“There could be thriving small-boat traffic we’re not actually looking at.”
After months of planning, Nick set sail for Dunkirk from Ramsgate one night at 1am.
Directly, it should take only a few hours but he was being careful and headed north for at least an hour in case anyone was watching.
Once he was sure he was not followed, he made a sudden turn in the North Sea and began heading south to Dunkirk, where four Vietnamese men were waiting for him.
Back in Ramsgate, with the four migrants hidden in the cabin, he moored the boat and drove home.
One of the Albanians then went to the marina and collected the migrants under cover of darkness.
But on one occasion the migrants were collected while it was still light, and were seen by onlookers who called police.
A surveillance team was called in to keep an eye on Nick’s movements, but he managed to carry out his ruse for 18 months before he was caught.
In late summer 2018, officers saw him sail into view with four Vietnamese men in his boat.
Labour’s vow to ‘smash the gangs’ won’t see Channel migrant numbers fall until NEXT YEAR, sources warn
Labour's promise to "smash the gangs" will not see Channel migrant numbers fall until at least next year.
Measures to break the route "up stream" by tackling smugglers and boat suppliers will take months to trickle down according to law enforcement sources.
Ministers have been warned good weather this year is also contributing to a surge in crossings that are on course for a record year.
The number of so called "red days" when the calm seas and wind make it perfect to cross have doubled in 2025 so far according to the same point last year.
And intelligence monitoring of the Channel has indicated a rise in migrants from the Horn of Africa has seen riskier and larger crossings attempted.
Those smugglers are cramming more people into boats, which is also pushing up the numbers.
More than 13,000 people have already made the journey this year, putting 2025 on course to have the highest ever number of crossings, since records began in 2017.
Government insiders are highly pessimistic about the prospect of reducing numbers this year.
And they warn that policy changes and increase in enforcement measures not noticeably pay off until 2026 due to the high numbers of migrants already in France and ready to attempt the perilous journey.
Nick was arrested and charged with conspiracy to facilitate the illegal entry of foreign nationals and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Annabel says: “What Nick was doing was unprecedented. Smuggling people into the UK using a boat was virtually unheard of in 2016. You could say he paved the way for the small-boat crisis that came later.”
More than 14,800 people have crossed the English Channel on small boats so far in 2025.
Last year 78 died trying to make the journey — a record.
Annabel adds: “Most gangs now use small, overcrowded inflatables to send people across the English Channel, knowing that once they enter British waters, those on board will be intercepted by Border Force and brought safely ashore.
“The migrants are then placed in hotels while their asylum claims are considered. But what about the people who don’t want to be rescued and instead want to creep in unnoticed, like the ones Nick brought in?
“He told me that right now, gangs are still smuggling people into the UK using marinas and yacht clubs around the country.
“While we were making this series, a luxury yacht hiding 20 Albanians below deck was intercepted on its way to a marina in Cornwall.”
Former Border Force chief Tony Smith told the BBC the “vast majority” of the agency’s resources went on the Small Boats Operational Command, the Home Office unit aimed at curbing migrant crossings, and he would like to see a focus on other marinas.
He says: “My preference certainly would be to deploy more widely and to look more across the whole of the UK coastline to identify threats.
“The interviews with Nick would be really, really helpful as another source of intelligence.”
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Nick says of his own smuggling role: “I regret a lot of it, but I don’t know that it would have ever been any different. I think I was always out for self-destruction anyway.”
- Shadow World: The Smuggler is on BBC Sounds now.