The Channel migrant crisis shows no sign of slowing down as almost 5,500 asylum seekers crossed in small boats last month, shocking figures show.
Calm weather led to 5,417 people crossing in 99 boats in October – the highest monthly total so far this year.
The new data, published by the Home Office, will be a big blow to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as they try to end the crisis.
The Government has repeatedly faced warnings that scrapping the Rwanda scheme will send a message to smugglers that Britain’s borders are open.
Labour is pinning its hopes on “smashing the gangs” and creating a deterrent by making it harder than ever before to find passage across the Channel.
But new figures show the October total is 1,225 more than the 4,192 migrants who arrived in Britain in September – the second-largest month of crossings.
A total of 30,661 migrants aboard 578 boats have now been intercepted by Border Force vessels and brought to Dover so far this year with two months remaining.
The year so far has been deadly for those making the journey.
Around 60 are known to have lost their lives while attempting to reach Britain so far this year – including 12 people who have died in October alone.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
“The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.”
The Daily Express has revealed how Britain wants to build “Al Capone” cases against migrant smugglers.
The National Crime Agency is examining other areas of their businesses to hunt out weaknesses, it is understood.
Some of the organised crime networks invest their profits from smuggling in drugs and gun trafficking in Europe, it is believed.
And the NCA is probing whether these higher risk activities could provide a crucial opening to snare the gangs and prevent more deaths in the Channel.
It comes amid growing frustration in the Home Office over German laws which state it is not illegal to facilitate people smuggling to a third country outside the EU.
Germany is a key logistics hub for smugglers, with equipment kept in the country before being moved to the French coast.
The Daily Express understands there are particular frustrations over a law which states it is not illegal to store huge dinghies in warehouses across western Germany.
Because Government officials believe it is unlikely they will be able to convince Berlin to rewrite their laws, law enforcement chiefs believe widening their investigations into the smuggling gangs could be more effective in disrupting them.
An insider said: “If these people were not trafficking people, they would be trafficking drugs or weapons.
“They can store the boats in Germany because it is not illegal to store the boats. But if they were being used for human trafficking, and they were on the water, they could be seized.”
Notorious gangster Al Capone ruled a crime empire, linked to murders, drug trafficking, prostitution, robbery, bootlegging, ‘protection rackets’ and gambling, in Chicago during the 1920s.
But he was jailed for seven years for tax evasion.
And Whitehall officials pointed to this case as an example of how they could build cases against people smugglers.
Former police chief Martin Hewitt has been appointed as the new Border Security Command leader, tasked with reducing small boat migration.
Intelligence officers are said to be working undercover at every level of the smuggling gangs.
This is to identify the key kingpins, their facilitators and how they hide their money.
The Daily Express understands the UK wants to deploy more specialists in Iraq to hunt the smugglers in their home country.
The Home Office said Britain’s intelligence agencies are “deploying formidable covert capability to support the NCA to penetrate and dismantle the gangs at every level of operation – from facilitators to financiers.”
Ms Cooper, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, the National Crime Agency and intelligence chiefs are understood to have discussed a review into the smuggling gangs’ capabilities and operations.
More British investigators and spies will be based in Europe to hunt the organised crime networks.
Sources have told the Daily Express that Ms Cooper’s team is hoping MI5 spies will treat people smugglers like foreign spies and terrorists.
This could see them bug smugglers’ phones and trace their movements, this newspaper understands.
