Migrant smugglers will face a greater battle to hide their vast profits after Western allies made seizing their cash one of their top priorities.
The UK, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands – the Calais Group – want to gather more intelligence on the secretive Hawala system used by the organised crime gangs and migrants.
And this will be used to track down the criminals and confiscate their profits, the Home Office claimed.
The Calais Group insisted they want to “optimise joint law enforcement cooperation to target the illicit finance of migrant smuggling networks who use informal value transfer systems, including Hawala banking, to fund and move profits from their criminal activities.”
All five nations will also share more intelligence on how the criminal gangs are using social media to entice migrants to cross the Channel.
A joint communique issued on Tuesday night stated: “Despite significant successes in tackling this shared problem since the Calais Group last met on 4 March 2024, we continue to see too many devastating tragedies along migratory routes into Europe, at sea and in the Channel and vulnerable migrants being exploited, notwithstanding the significant resources devoted to rescue at sea by the concerned states.
“The migrant smuggling criminals only care about profit and continue to deploy more dangerous tactics putting lives at risk.”
On monday, Germany vowed to arrest Channel migrant smugglers storing boats in warehouses just hours from the French coast.
Berlin will “clarify” its laws to allow police to snare criminals using safehouses in the country, making it a criminal offence to “facilitate the smuggling” of asylum seekers.
The Home Office believes a new deal between the UK and Germany will “significantly increase the number of prosecutions made in relation to migrant smuggling”.
Both countries will also “commit to exchanging expertise with a special focus on removing migrant smuggling content from social media platforms; strengthen their focus in Europol on tackling the end-to-end routes of criminal smuggling networks; and further commit to working with European and regional partners to tackle irregular migration upstream.”
Smugglers have exploited loopholes in German law to bring engines and boats to the French coast, bragging that they can reach the French coast using the motorway network within several hours.
Thousands of migrants also pass through the country, with organised crime gangs using safehouses near Bonn, Cologne, Frankfurt, Essen, Dusseldorf, Bochum and Dortmund.
Criminals have admitted sometimes offering ‘bait’ to German police.
This sees the gangsters allow the authorities to seize boats and equipment – but not enough to disrupt their businesses.
The Home Office had been frustrated with German laws which state it is not illegal to facilitate people smuggling to a third country outside the EU.
The Daily Express understands there were particular frustrations over a law which states it is not illegal to store huge dinghies in warehouses across western Germany.
