EVIL GANGS
ARMED gangs are smuggling children into Britain on flimsy boats for £2,500-a-head, a Sunday Mirror investigation reveals today.
The kids and their parents – who pay £5,000 each – are herded on to inflatables and small vessels for the perilous 21-mile sailing from Calais to the Kent coast.
Iraqi Kurdish gangsters use secret social media pages and passwords to drum up business.
Then, “like travel agents”, they target refugees in ramshackle camps offering the “special half-price deals” for children.
One refugee told us: “You have to pay mafia here to get on a boat to England.”
But once in the UK many are picked up by “Mr Bigs” and forced into slavery.
Last night Save the Children called our findings “sickening” and echoed a warning by French police that children’s lives are being put at risk.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid cut short his holiday to deal with the migrant crisis, which he called a “major incident”.
And Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes yesterday held an emergency meeting with the Border Force, Immigration Enforcement and the National Crime Agency in Dover. Our probe came as the toll of migrants plucked from the Channel by British authorities since Christmas Day reached 94.
PROPERTY
Many are professionals, business owners or from middle- class backgrounds in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
They pay for the crossings after saving up, selling property or borrowing cash.
Iranian Ahmad Lorpur, 36, has been living in a tent in Calais with his wife and two children for four months while waiting for his chance to get to the UK.
He told us: “You have to pay mafia to get on a boat. They are Iraqi-Kurds.
“They call themselves ‘agents’, like travel agents. I have met one of them – a young Iraqi Kurd aged in his 20s.
“He said he lives in England and that I needed to pay £5,000 each for me and my wife to travel there. He said my children can go for half the price – £2,500.”
Standing with his kids Mariam, seven, and Benyamin, two, Ahmad added: “I have no money left now. It is all gone, but if I had £15,000 I would pay it.
“I paid $8,000 (£6,300) to smugglers to get my family out of Iran and into Europe as we suffered persecution for being Christian. We managed to get here four months ago, but now we’re stuck.
“It is no good for us here in Calais. My son is sick and we need help.
“Everyone is waiting to get on boats to England. It is a big problem.”
An Iraqi- Kurdish refugee who is living at a camp 30 miles away, near Dunkirk, said desperate refugees contact smugglers through secret Facebook groups. The 40-year-old man, who lived in the north of England before being deported three years ago, asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.
He said: “The names of the Facebook groups regularly change and it is not obvious what they are unless you know about them. But after you’ve private messaged them, and they’re satisfied you’re not police, they send an agent to
You have to pay the mafia to get on boat to England... they act like travel agents AHMAD LORPUR REFUGEE BIDDING TO REACH THE UK
meet you in person. It’s still very cloak and dagger. Once they’re completely happy, they negotiate a deal and give you a number to contact them on a messaging app like Telegram so it’s secure – as well as details of a bank account number for you or a family member to pay the money to.
“I cannot risk giving you the details of the Facebook group because if they found out I would be in a lot of danger.
“They have knives and guns. I’m worried they could be watching now.”
French officials say the number of