Migrant Crisis in Kent CCTV Captures Suspected Smuggling Gang in Seaside Village

Migrant crisis in Kent – CCTV captures suspected smuggling gang in seaside village ALARMING CCTV footage from a tiny village captures the moment a gang expertly executed a suspected illegal migrant smuggling operation in the early hours of the morning, residents claim. By Siobhan McFadyen PUBLISHED: 07:51, Wed, Jun 1, 2016 | UPDATED: 14:12, Wed, Jun 1, 2016

The village of Dymchurch, Kent, where the phrase "Scott Free" originated, is thought to have been the venue for criminal gangs involved in the transportation of migrants from across the English Channel. According to locals the sleepy village has been a hive of activity for illegal gangs using boats to bring migrants to the UK. On Monday, two Britons appeared in court charged with trying to smuggle 18 Albanians, who were rescued and brought ashore to the village when their boat began to sink. And some of the village’s 6,000 residents fear it could be the tip of the iceberg after witnessing suspicious activity. That includes 17 suspected Albanian migrants and a British man wanted for murder taken into custody in Chichester, West Sussex in a similar incident days earlier.

Local businessman Mark Wools, 53, who owns the Dymchurch amusement arcade, said: "It was a slick operation. "Border control came and told me there was an incident and so we looked at the CCTV. I was surprised to see the trafficking of migrants in a small village like Dymchurch. This has happened on several occasions. The people doing it must be making money and the migrants are taking risks crossing the Channel."

NC In the footage two 4x4 vehicles pulling rubber inflatable boats are spotted on camera. Earlier that day witnesses say the drivers - who are not believed to be known in the village - captured attention because they stopped traffic in order to turn around.

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One witness said: "One guy got out of the passenger seat, stopped the traffic and then off they went. It looked like they had done it before – driving a trailer round with a big boat is quite hard.” He added that he thought four men had been inside the car, saying: ‘They looked very professional. They looked like they were going out just for a pleasure ride – they looked the part.’"

A spokesman for Migration Watch said UK Home Office data indicates there were 4,653 asylum applications from Albanians between 2008 and 2014. They said just 1,449 received permission to stay and that only 1,337 have been removed from the country leaving 1,777 unaccounted for.

According to reports this is not the first time alleged smugglers have been spotted on CCTV. Footage taken on May 11 showed similar scenes and the next day another boat was found abandoned on the beach, packed with life jackets.

According to experts people traffickers are using seemingly innocuous marinas, ports and isolated beaches using the same strategies involved with the illegal import of spirits, tobacco and tea.

The UK Government is facing increasing pressure over the country's coastal defences. And the cancellation of a £4million contract with aviation firm Cobham in January to provide an ‘eye in the sky’ has also been criticised. It was revealed last week Border Force has just three boats to patrol the whole of Britain’s coastline. In March, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel told EU leaders that Britain was being targeted by smugglers. He said security at Zeebrugge had "deteriorated frighteningly."

2 Two boatloads of migrants do not an invasion make Rhetoric over weekend arrivals stems more from EU referendum than any transfer of the Mediterranean boat crisis to Britain

The rescue of 35 Albanians off the coast of Kent over the weekend does not necessarily constitute a trend. Photograph: Sky News

Alan Travis Home affairs editor Monday 30 May 2016 18.03 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 7 June 201620.28 BST Only during a European referendum campaign could the rescue of two small boats containing 35 Albanians off the coast of Kent over a bank holiday weekend be inflated into a major new migrant invasion force heading for Britain. The fear is that the recent security clampdown at the Port of Calais and Channel tunnel will lead to migrants prepared to risk their lives trying to reach Britain in small boats. It is claimed that cuts to the UK Border Force has left hundreds of miles of British coastline, particularly in Kent and Sussex, completely unguarded and wide open to desperate migrants trying to make it across the Channel. But neither the fear nor the charge are necessarily well-founded. The arrival of two small boats does not constitute a trend. As the former chief inspector of borders John Vine put it: “I think it is reasonable to assume that this is something that might have been happening, and if this is now the start of a new trend we certainly need to gather the intelligence and the resources to nip it in the bud.” This is no doubt correct and the UK Border Force and its maritime control centre will no doubt be able to command the necessary resources to ensure that it will be nipped in the bud.

But it is very wrong to assume that this weekend marks the arrival of the Mediterranean refugee boat crisis on the shores of Britain. Unlike the Med, the Channel is one of the most monitored stretches of water in the world. It has to be as it is one of the busiest shipping lanes.

3 We don’t need a flotilla of Royal Navy boats or UK Border Force cutters patrolling a coastline that is tiny in comparison to the shores of north Africa. We already have radar and some of the world’s most sophisticated tracking systems to monitor cross- Channel traffic. David Bolt, Vine’s successor as chief inspector of borders, raised concerns in January about some of the patchy Border Force coverage of small ports and small airports around Britain. The Home Office responded by pointing out that they may not have Border Force officers at every harbour, but they do work closely with the harbour masters in every port, who know only too well when there are unusual movements on their patch. If they don’t spot them, then there is no shortage of locals to alert them. The Home Office has not regarded small harbour checks as the highest priority for the simple reason that they have not so far proved to be an open backdoor into Britain. In fact the home secretary, Theresa May, was prepared to send one of her five Border Force cutters to the Mediterranean last year to help the EU intercept people smugglers rather than patrol the British coast. The two boatloads of Albanians might yet prove the start of a new trend, but the front- page headlines about them have more to do with referendum campaign rhetoric than with the debate over the changing priorities of border security.

4 Sympathy and solidarity for migrants on Kos beaches as two worlds collide Tourists show concern for fleeing victims of war, and while Greeks say migrants cause few problems they fear trafficking is hurting an already fragile economy

Migrant men arrive on the beach in Kos. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe

Tracy McVeigh in Kos Saturday 6 June 2015 21.00 BST Last modified on Sunday 7 June 2015 00.00 BST At around 7am, the day’s arrivals are walked from the small industrial port where their boats have been brought in by police launch and around the corner into the picturesque harbour of Kos Town, past the shuttered shops and cafes and on a 20-minute walk to the very outskirts of town.

The knot of tired migrants have little more than a bag each. Those with children to carry bring still less, having paid €1,200 (£875) to make the journey from the Turkish mainland; 40 to 45 people in unsafe, 15ft plastic dinghies, floors lined with plywood, damp with seawater. They are piled into the boat by the traffickers and pointed towards the Greek coastline.

Along Kos harbourside they pass the dozen or more big holiday boats. It takes 35 minutes to get to Turkey in one of these boats; in the migrants’ dinghies it is three to four sleepless hours in the dark.

A retired British couple on an early stroll stop to watch the migrants’ quiet parade. “First time I’ve actually seen them, and we’ve been here a week. So sad really. I hope they find new lives,” says Julia Brookes, a Scotswoman from Leeds. “Don’t ask him, though,” she says, indicating her husband, “he’s from the ‘let them die at sea’ brigade. Terrible man.”

Another woman, from Germany, in a neon bikini top, gets off her bicycle: “I come here every year, and I’m sorry to say enough is enough. This is testing the patience of people who are resident here, and the tourists who come to get away from the terrible news of wars and whatnot, not to see it. They shouldn’t be allowed to land.”

One of the elderly fish sellers on the harbourside scolds her: “Lady, you’d rather have bodies on the beaches? Tsk. We knew war here too once,” he says, fixing her with a beady eye.

5 The Captain Elias Hotel is just a shell, deserted during the economic slump. Before Easter local volunteers came in answer to a call from the mayor of Kos to clean the building and install standpipes for water. Dozens of bare mattresses line the floors and tents have gone up around the empty swimming pool. Here people try to find a space to sleep and wait until their paperwork is completed and they can move on, first to Athens, then to other parts of Europe.

Residents drive up with regularity, dropping off what they can: bottles of water, bags of oranges, clothing. One woman brought a dozen cuddly toy dogs for children, driving off quickly as one of the fathers became tearful with gratitude.

“The Greeks have had bad times, many have nothing,” says Batoor Sulimankhel. “This is hospitality. People with nothing understand more than people who have everything.” The Afghan has been here for three days and hopes to be moving on soon.

Swedish holidaymaker Pernille Gusta, 27, and her five friends have cycled out from town to have a look. “There are not so many people, but it is a shame to see the conditions,” she says. “We asked people what they need, but they were just smiling and embarrassed. There’s a child with some stomach upset so we’ll find a pharmacy and see what we can do.”

She says there had been a row in her holiday apartment block about the presence there of migrants, who turned out to be a French Muslim family on holiday. “An English family moved to another place. I can understand that it makes people feel guilty, so it’s hard to have fun when maybe you have worked hard for this vacation. But they are people too.” Her friend Sara adds: “It is prejudice.”

With 2,000 migrants drowning in the Mediterranean this year, there is an exhausted euphoria among the newly-arrived in Kos. Coming off the police launch on Friday was a Syrian teacher, Mohamad al- Shamali. He showed photographs on his phone of the street he had left behind in Aleppo, all rubble and bloodstains and bombed-out cars. He is sad that he might not see his homeland again. “But life is more important,” he says.

“The worst is not even death; it’s the jails. So many people disappear,” says Shamali. “There are three kinds of horrible in Syria: the Islamic forces, the Bashir soldiers, and the thieves who take people and want money, then kill them anyway.” He made it to Kos on his second attempt.

Manolis is a port security guard who is angry to find a British journalist here. “Why do the British papers say the things they have said?” he says, referring to a Daily Mail article last month which suggested that Kos was overrun with migrants bothering tourists and hanging dirty washing around the harbour. “It will destroy us if the tourists stop coming. Already we are 27% down for the month. These people don’t make trouble. They stay a few days and are gone. These people are quiet and friendly and just escaping war.”

6 How many more can Kos take? Thousands of boat people from Syria and Afghanistan set up migrant camp in popular Greek island - with holidaymakers branding the situation 'disgusting'

 Migrants are descending on the Greek holiday island of Kos. Some 1,200 refugees have arrived in the last few days

 Penniless refugees have set up camp, sleeping on rubbish-strewn cardboard boxes the harbour side

 They've taken over a derelict hotel with makeshift beds, no running water and are washing with a hose on the street

 Summer break labelled a 'nightmare' by British holidaymakers, who 'won’t be coming back if it's a refugee camp next year'

 Holiday island Kos is particularly popular with families taking their kids away on package deals for half term By Mail Online Reporter Published: 20:07, 27 May 2015 | Updated: 19:35, 10 June 2015 Thousands of boat people from Syria and Afghanistan have set up migrant camp in the popular Greek island of Kos - with holidaymakers branding the situation 'disgusting'. As families – often on cheap package deals and enjoying some summer sun with their kids during the half term break – relax on sun loungers on the beach, just a yards away scores of migrants have set up camp, sleeping on cardboard boxes with rubbish strewn everywhere. Anne Servante, a nurse from Manchester, had come to Kos expecting a relaxing break with her husband Tony, a retired plumber. Instead her summer break has turned into a nightmare as penniless migrants who are in Greece to claim asylum sit outside their restaurant and watch them eat.

7 Calling it 'disgusting', Anne fumed: ‘We have been coming here for almost ten years. We like to eat, drink and relax. But this time the atmosphere has changed. 'It’s really dirty and messy here now. And it’s awkward. I’m not going to sit in a restaurant with people watching you.’ Another British couple on holiday with their grandchildren from Birmingham said: ‘We have never been before but we don’t like it. We won’t be coming back if it’s like a refugee camp again next year.’ Migrants from war-torn Afghanistan and Syria have taken shelter under arcades on the seafront in Kos town as they wait to receive security clearance for onward travel to mainland Greece. The wealthiest groups have smart phones and credit cards and are staying in local hotels for 10-15 euros a night - while the rest are camped out on the harbour side and at a derelict hotel on the edge of Kos town. Straggly migrants straight from the boats march straight through the town with backpacks on to join friends and register for their travel permits at the police station. Barefoot toddlers in filthy clothes play among debris while moustached men sit staring out to sea as they plan the next stage of their journey to Athens and the rest of Europe – including some heading for Britain. Young Afghan mothers in head scarves, changing their babies and washing their children’s clothes in the sea, share the promenade with tourists who sit uncomfortably on the beachfront. The harbourside has become an unofficial washing line with baby clothes and grubby- looking scarves laid out along the shoreline. Baby bottles and towels litter the area.

Groups of young men squatting together under the shade of the tree look on while British and Dutch families queue for ice-cream.