3 Britons held in ‘plot to f ly migrants over from Calais’
THREE Britons were in custody in France yesterday accused of people-smuggling after trying to fly four illegal immigrants to England.
The three men were arrested along with their human cargo at Marck airfield, near Calais, on Monday.
Local prosecutors said it was the first time they had dealt with an attempt to smuggle migrants by air.
Philippe Sabatier, the assistant prosecutor in Boulogne, said: ‘The pilot and the two smugglers, who are all of British nationality, face trial for the offence of helping the movement of immigrants as part of an organised gang.’
Mr Sabatier said the migrants were Albanian nationals who paid ‘four-figure sums’ to be taken to Britain. They included a mother and child, who were taken to hospital for medical checks, but have since disappeared. The other two migrants, a man and a woman, are being held in a detention centre.
The plane, a four-seat, singleengine Cessna 172 Skyhawk, was on the ground and the pilot was at the controls when the arrests took place, although the migrants had not boarded.
Mr Sabatier added: ‘It is too early to know the profile of the pilot. The investigators are awaiting information from the British authorities.’
Thousands of illegal migrants have been drawn to northern France, where they normally climb aboard lorries and trains in an attempt to get to Britain.
There have been rumours of planes offering a smuggling service from France in the past, but this is the first confirmed case.
The so-called Jungle refugee camp in Calais was razed last October, with 8,000 migrants being dispersed to other parts of France. But French authorities have since reported a growing build-up of foreign nationals who want to get to the UK.
This includes numerous Albanians, who tend to favour the more expensive service offered
‘Extremely vulnerable’
by highly organised gangs of people-smugglers. The arrests will raise concerns about potential gaps in border security that are meant to protect Britain.
In January, a judge warned small airfields were defenceless against people-smugglers after jailing a pilot who flew in three Albanians from Germany. Judge Stephen Holt said dozens of the runways were ‘extremely vulnerable’ because they could not be monitored by officials.
He voiced his concern after hearing the case of Algirdas Barteska who turned off the transponder on his plane to avoid being tracked as he approached a private flying club in Seething, Norfolk.
The Lithuanian ex-airline pilot claimed he had made an urgent landing to allow the woman and her child to use the toilet.
But he had not logged his passengers’ presence and immigra- tion officials said it ‘ stretched credulity’ that someone with such experience did not know he was breaking the law by landing with them.
Barteska, 60, was jailed for six years after a jury took just two hours to find him guilty of assisting people-smuggling.
The ease with which people can slip across our open borders was also exposed by Mail journalist Sue Reid in January. She hired a small plane to fly across the Channel to Britain’s south coast without undergoing proper identity or security checks.
Within 18 minutes of taking off from an airstrip in Calais, the plane landed at a quiet airfield near the cliffs of Dover.