Smuggling gangs are now utilizing ‘taxi boat’ services to pick up migrants along the French coast to take them to the UK, The Times reports. Illegal human smuggling groups are otherwise growing in number and are changing tactics across northern France.
Under new directives expected to be introduced next month, the French police will be able to intervene with migrant dinghies up to 300 meters away from the coast.
The Taxi Service
Smugglers used to inflate small boats called dinghies on the shore with their soon-to-be passengers by their side. The boats would be hidden in between coastal dunes, but British authorities provided French police with high-tech radar equipment that would detect these hiding places.
Since the 2023 deal between the two countries, the crackdown on smugglers has intensified. But so has the number of migrants hoping to cross; 2,222 migrants arrived in 35 boats in the UK in just one week earlier this month.
French police have begun to utilize even more severe tactics, including tear gas on migrants boarding dinghies, but hundreds of others still reach the UK.
The answer to these altered tactics was to take advantage of the French police’s prohibition of interfering with boardings once migrants are in the water.
The smugglers inflate the boats in hidden locations, away from police patrol, then begin cruising along the coast. Groups of migrants wait standing in water until they spot the ‘taxi boat,’ then climb onboard.
Police stand on the coast and watch, making sure the boarding does not claim lives, but due to limitations of the law are unable to intervene in any other way. They may attempt to intercept a boat that has run ashore but are afraid to intrude more seriously.
One officer reasoned that the coast cannot be fenced off like a land border, and if any migrants drowned due to a panic induced by approaching police, officers would be taken to court.
Safer but Just as Exploitative
According to the BBC’s reporter, who witnessed one such boarding, this system means that there is no time pressure for boarding, giving smugglers enough time to keep order and stop people from trampling one another.
But the usage of dinghies and overloading them with passengers continues to pose a threat to lives.
Many of the migrants never learned to swim, so the taxi service model is also incredibly dangerous.
Smugglers across the globe continue to ask for exorbitant prices for a journey, while, for instance, an Albanian smuggler group has advertised a journey across the Channel for £2,000 per person.
The old fishing village of Audresselles, just south of Cap Gris-Nez, was recently witness to a launch: smugglers left behind a black Volvo V50 after driving it at high speed to the shore covered in pebbles. A black cord inside is evidence that the inflated dinghy was tied to the top of the car and launched from the site. The car was abandoned by smugglers who began the taxi service in the early hours of the morning.
Tensions Rise in Camps
French police claim to be stopping two-thirds of launches, but incoming numbers continue to rise in the UK. As such, authorities are under even more pressure to restrict crossings.
This affects the local camps as well, such as Loon Plage, where two separate shootings occurred in one weekend.
🚨Two shootings claimed two lives in a migrant camp near Dunkirk, France last weekend🚨
📌Two died and at least seven are wounded after two separate shootings near the Loon-Plage camp outside Dunkirk
📌Saturday: a 24-year-old Sudanese man was killed, and 5 injured, a woman and…
— FactRefuge (@FactRefuge) June 20, 2025
Authorities have attempted to clear out the camps near Dunkirk and Calais for several weeks, as Border Force estimates more than 2000 are waiting there for a place on a taxi boat.
