Boats 'set for people smugglers' seized at airport

Officers have seized 25 inflatable boats reportedly destined to be shipped to cross-Channel people smugglers.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the boats - about nine metres in length - were spotted in pallets on an air freight shipment being moved from Turkey to the Netherlands.

The shipment went through a freight hub at East Midlands Airport on the way, allowing NCA and Border Force to intercept on Friday.

NCA officers added this was the second time a large consignment of small boat equipment had been seized in the UK in 2026, but the first time such a detection had been made in air freight.

In July, 25 boats and 25 engines were seized in a maritime consignment at Felixstowe in Suffolk. The boat carrying them had stopped there on the way to Germany.

Home Office figures show more than 20,000 migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year.

A total of 609 people arrived in eight boats on Monday - taking the figure for 2026 to 20,478 people. This is substantially lower than for the same period last year.

The NCA said, had the latest shipment made its way into the hands of people smugglers, "each could have been used to transport around 70 people across the Channel".

The NCA estimated the boats could have been used to move up to 1,700 migrants.

NCA deputy director of investigations Craig Turner said: "We continue to target groups or individuals directly involved in the supply of boats and engines used in the Channel for people smuggling.

"This work is happening both overseas, with international partners, and here in the UK. So far it has led to the seizure of in excess of 1,600 boats and engines, denying their use to criminal networks.

"Our assessment is that this is having an impact, driving up the cost of boats and engines, making it more difficult to get them to the coast and eating into the profits of the criminal gangs involved.

"I've no doubt the boats we've seized here would have ended up being used to risk the lives of a huge number of people in the Channel had we not stepped in. Our investigation continues."

Minister for border security and asylum Anna Turley added: "This seizure of 25 small boats delivers yet another blow to the evil smuggling gangs.

"Disruptions to supply lines like these are happening more than ever before as we bear down on the illegal and dangerous crossings."

The NCA said about 100 investigations into gangs involved in organisation immigration crime were ongoing.

Adam Berry, branch commander for the alternative disruption team, confirmed it was the first time it had made a seizure of air freight in the UK.

"These boats are so dangerous," he said. "We have sadly seen so many deaths in the Channel recently, and it's because they are just purely constructed to get across as cheaply and as flimsily as possible.

"What we can see when we get the boats and we blow the boats up is that there's distinctive shapes and types of them.

"There's a distinctive transom - which is the bit where the engine sits - and then you've got how many chambers they are, the construction of them and other key bits.

"We can look at boats that have arrived and we can compare them to these and prove that these boats are the exact boats that we have seen in the Channel."

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