Corrupt French taxi drivers are being recruited by organised crime gangs to ferry small boat migrants to the sea to avoid being caught.
People smugglers are giving taxi drivers a cut of the profits to ferry them to the coast – often with boats inside.
It is another tactic being used by the smugglers to continue the trade after French police were successful in randomly stopping vans in Calais.
This led to numerous arrests for transporting migrants and equipment.
Now taxi and mini cab drivers are being recruited to bypass French police in the area.
Last month in Boulogne, a gang were jailed for being involved in the practice, understood to be the first court case of its kind.
An arrest warrant has been issued for the leader, who did not turn up to court but was jailed for seven years in his absence.
Two were jailed this week and transporting migrants and taking a cut from the profits – believed to be £50,000 in five weeks.
One claimed in a police interview that he had been told to transport the migrants by French police.
But his excuse was slammed by a judge and he was jailed for 12 months.
A prosecution source in Calais said: “We expect more and more of these cases. The smugglers are staying one step ahead of the game and are treating it as a black market industry.
“That brings in other factors as well. And it attracts undesirable people.
“They see it as easy money. It is guaranteed custom, pre-paid and more lucrative than normal taxi work.
“They are not expecting taxi drivers to be ferrying the migrants around but they are given the information from an organised crime gang to pick them up having entered a part of France.
“Contact is all done on encrypted apps and then they take them to the coast where a small boat will be waiting in the night.”
It comes amid mounting tensions between France and Britain as to how much of taxpayers’ cash has been given to them to stop the problem.
Tory MP Nigel Mills said: “I’d have thought this taxi driver method should have been stopped a long time ago based on how much cash we have been sending them.”
