Smuggled (C4) 9PM

[tiger76]

In the wake of the tragedy in Essex this programme explores the murky world of people trafficking,and examines how hard or not it is too illegally enter the UK.

[Cardclaret]

Bit embarrassing with the guy sat behind the front seat of the van with a coat over him. Border guys opened the back but never checked the cab. Pretty sobering programme.

[Blackrod]

Borders as thin as rice paper.

[bfcmik]

You get, to a fair degree, what you are prepared to pay for. Only a certain number of Border Force people work on the front line. Family vehicles are usually only checked for contraband rather than illegal immigrants as it is believed they would be aware, as they were, of any additional travellers in their vehicle.

When I drove freight backwards and forwards to Europe I would get stopped by Border once for every 10 customs checks and they would only be 1 trip in 20 at most. At Dover there are 5 HMRC & Border Force officials on duty at any time and they would have 240 trucks and vans along with 100s of family vehicles to check. They had generally pre-selected who would be stopped for which checks and the lists would be heavily influenced by previous check results and intelligence. Many Border Force people are watching the places where people traffickers and large groups of illegals are gathered (which are moving further and further away from the channel ports due to the effectiveness of the targeting. I am still in contact with many European truck drivers through facebook groups and the warnings about high numbers of illegals are now from well inside Belgium or 40-50 miles from Calais, Dunkerque and Caen. Of course, people still get vehicles entered by cutting through curtain security wires, trailer roofs or climbing under the trailer chassis whilst they park up for a compulsory break or even while they are filling up with diesel. Most drivers know the score though and check their cords and shine a torch under the trailer before moving off again

[Tricky Trevor]

I’ve ferried to Europe and back hundreds of times and never once got stopped with the family. I did a few crossings with a mate for work and football and got stopped 3 times.

[mdd2]

We have entered the UK from hols with 4 passports for five of us.Given we had gone from UK to France without a passport we picked up an emergency passport to get the 4 plus one home and it was never shown going from France into Spain, back into France, into Spain, leaving Spain and so for the hell of it we showed 4 passports and not the emergency one and we were waived through at Southampton.That was about 1990