As migrant boats in Channel face crackdown, TikTok gangs offer lorry crossing for £18,000
MIGRANT smugglers have launched a TikTok advertising blitz offering passage to the UK stowed in lorries.
Expecting a crackdown on small boats, Albanian gangs are demanding up to £18,000 a head for ‘100 per cent success’.
Unlike the occupants of small boats, who are usually picked up by lifeboats and passed to border officials, lorry migrants disappear on arrival – avoiding detention and a fast-track return to Albania.
Although unlikely to start until spring, a rapid removal deal agreed by former home secretary Priti Patel and her Albanian counterpart seems to have prompted the move.
A TikTok post from an account called ‘journey with a lorry’ said: ‘Tomorrow morning journey from Belgium. 100 per cent suc
‘We will send a taxi to get you’
cess.’ An undercover Mail reporter was told it would cost £26,000 for two. The smuggler added: ‘You will start the journey from Belgium. We will send a taxi to get you to your destination. We have a journey next week.’
He confirmed the driver was in on the conspiracy and would hide them in the lorry.
Another post said migrants could pose as a co-driver in the cab for £18,000. A third included pictures of Big Ben and Tower Bridge, displaying a charge of £18,000 to get in as a ‘co-driver’.
Others offered the chance to dodge the returns crackdown by flying to the UK with fake passports. A post from January 13 featuring a photograph of a British Airways jet said: ‘Journey to England on aeroplane.
Spain-Dublin-London with European passports. Hotel and tickets paid by us.
‘A person will escort you. Payment on arrival.’ TikTok removed three of the posts this week but new ones pop up daily. More than a third of the 46,000 arrivals across the Channel last year were Albanian.
The Home Office said last night: ‘Social media companies such as TikTok have a responsibility to take down posts that promote illegal and criminal activity.’
IT’S a mark of how far the Tories have fallen that such a lacklustre politician as Sir Keir has taken Labour into a commanding lead in the polls.
But voters haven’t warmed to the opposition leader, who has nothing constructive to say about Britain’s problems.
So all is not lost for Rishi Sunak. With boldness and the rediscovery of his Tory instincts, he has a puncher’s chance of hauling his party back into contention.
Top of his agenda must be promoting growth. Sky-high business and personal taxes are choking the recovery.
Couldn’t the Chancellor use a predicted £27billion Budget windfall – partly due to tumbling energy prices – to slash the crippling tax burden?
The Prime Minister must also fulfil his pledge to tackle illegal immigration. Today we reveal Albanian gangs are using TikTok to advertise smuggling migrants into Britain in lorries ahead of a planned Home Office crackdown on small boats.
Many of those arriving illegally manipulate human rights laws to stay. To end this scandal, the PM must be willing to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Finally, Mr Sunak must push through tough laws to compel unions in key public services to provide a minimum level of cover during strikes.
Yes, the liberal Left will howl. But if he strains every sinew to achieve these goals, he’ll prove to the public he is on their side – and reap the reward at the ballot box.
▮ THE hard-Left union planning chaos for pupils with a wave of school strikes insists it fights tirelessly for teachers. In fact, as we reveal today, the National Education Union spends thousands of pounds on expensive junkets to socialist utopias such as Cuba. Don’t children deserve better than to have their lessons – and teachers their employment – disrupted by these tinpot Che Guevaras?
▮ GERMANY’S reluctance to send tanks to Ukraine – or allow other nations to donate theirs – is truly shameful. The hardware could enable President Zelensky’s forces to repel and drive out Putin’s aggressors. While chancellor Olaf Scholz dithers, ever more Ukrainian blood will be spilled. Standing up to warmongers requires military strength – not appeasement.