Germany has carried out its first raids under a new law to crack down on smugglers using the country as a staging post for small boat crossings on the English Channel, the BBC has learned. More than 9,000 life jackets, dozens of dinghies and engines and 360 pumps were seized by police this spring during a joint operation involving the UK, France and Germany in the North Rhine-Westphalia region. The dinghies and equipment are now being stored at a secret location that the BBC was given special access to.
The boats could have taken more than 2,000 migrants across the Channel illegally, according to the UK's National Crime Agency. Gangs have long used garages or warehouses to store equipment in western Germany before transporting it to northern France, but Berlin passed a law last December making it a specific criminal offence to facilitate migrant smuggling to the UK. Before that, key anti-smuggling laws in Germany only applied to nations within the EU's zone of free movement, not to third countries, which included the UK post-Brexit.
Raids have happened in Germany before, but often relied on French or Belgian warrants. In 2024, Germany said it would tighten its laws to make it easier to prosecute those helping to ferry migrants to the UK, as part of a new plan agreed between the two countries. It followed a BBC investigation which exposed the country's role in the small boat supply chain.
Germany's Interior Ministry confirmed that these raids marked the first time enforcement measures had been taken under the new law, but did not confirm if the law had been employed more than once. The BBC was able to see the results at an undisclosed police storehouse in western Germany. The stash has been kept much as it was found.
The dinghies, that officials say measure approximately 9m (29ft), are deflated and mainly packaged up in cardboard boxes. In June, when the National Crime Agency first revealed the raids had happened, it was estimated that the equipment could have taken more than 2,000 people across the Channel - which would work out to about 65 people per dinghy. That number is less than the so-called mega dinghies seen this summer but matches recent averages as well as the general trend of rising passenger numbers.
Oxford's Migration Observatory, external believes the emergence of these mega dinghies is likely connected to increased enforcement, as there is an "additional incentive for smugglers to fit as many people as possible into available boats". Gangs are prone to adapt - rather than abandon - their money-making schemes when supply lines are disrupted. The life jackets in the warehouse are tightly bundled and wrapped in plastic.
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