Smuggling gangs switch tactics to use 'taxi boats' for journeys across the Channel | BBC News

French police are struggling to halt a potentially record-breaking surge of people from reaching the UK in small boats organised by a growing network of smuggling gangs.

Downing Street has said the situation is “deteriorating."

Although the French authorities claim they’re now intercepting more than two thirds of those boats before they reach the sea, the smugglers are now changing tactics to launch so-called “taxi-boats” from new sites, in new ways, and with ever greater speed.

Instead of inflating their boats in the dunes along the coast, close to police patrols, the gangs are launching them from better hidden locations, often dozens of kilometres from the main departure beaches.

They then cruise along the coastline, like taxis or buses, picking up their paying customers who now wait in the sea, out of reach of the police.

Andrew Harding reports from Calais.

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Post from BBC News on June 18, 2025

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