Vietnamese smugglers selling ‘priority’ services

The Vietnamese people smuggler emerged briefly and hesitantly from the shadows of a rugged forest near the northern French coast.

‘Get away from the others. Come this way quickly,” he said, gesturing across a disused railway line to a member of our team who had been undercover for weeks posing as a potential customer.

A moment later the smuggler, a tall figure with brightly dyed blond hair, turned away sharply, like a startled fox, and disappeared along a narrow path into the forest.

Earlier this year, Vietnam emerged – abruptly – as the largest source of new migrants trying to cross the Channel illegally into Britain in small boats. The number of arrivals increased from 1,306 in all of 2023 to 2,248 in the first half of 2024.

Our research – including interviews with Vietnamese smugglers and clients, French police, prosecutors and charities – shows how Vietnamese migrants pay double the going rate for an “elite” small boat smuggling experience that is faster and more streamlined. With the death toll in the Channel reaching record levels this year, there are some indications that it could also be safer.

As part of our work to penetrate Vietnamese operations, we met an experienced smuggler operating in Britain and forging documents for migrants wanting to reach Europe. In addition, our undercover reporter – posing as a Vietnamese migrant – arranged a meeting by telephone and text message with a smuggling gang operating in the forests near Dunkirk, to find out how the process works.

“A small boat service costs £2,600. Payment must be made after you arrive in Britain,” the smuggler, who called himself Bac, texted back. We heard similar figures from other sources. We think Bac is a high-ranking figure in a British gang and the boss of Tony, the blond man in the woods.

He had given us instructions on the journey from Europe to Britain, explaining how many migrants first flew from Vietnam to Hungary – where we understand it is currently relatively easy for them to obtain a legitimate work visa, often obtained using forged documents. Bac said the migrants then traveled to Paris and then to Dunkirk.

“Tony can pick you up at the (Dunkirk) station,” he offered in a later text message.

Vietnamese migrants are widely considered vulnerable to networks of human trafficking groups. These groups may try to get them into debt and force them to pay off those debts by working in cannabis farms or other businesses in Britain.

It is clear from several recent visits to the camps around Dunkirk and Calais that Vietnamese gangs and their clients operate separately from other groups.

“They keep to themselves and are much more discreet than the others. We see very little of them,” says Claire Millot, a volunteer at Salam, an NGO that supports migrants in Dunkirk.

A volunteer from another charity tells us he recently had a rare glimpse of about 30 Vietnamese buying life jackets at a Dunkirk branch of the Decathlon sporting goods chain.

The streamlined services of the Vietnamese gangs not only ensure social distancing, but also much less waiting in the camps. Many migrants from Africa and the Middle East spend weeks, even months, in appalling conditions on the French coast. Some do not have enough money to afford a place on a small boat and try to make a living by working for the smuggling gangs. Many are intercepted on the beaches by French police and have to make several attempts before successfully crossing the Channel.

On a recent visit, we saw dozens of weary families – from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Eritrea and elsewhere – gathering in the drizzle at a muddy site where humanitarian groups provide daily meals and medical aid. A group of children played Connect 4 at a picnic table while a man sought treatment for a wound on his arm. Several parents told us they had heard about a four-month-old Kurdish boy who had drowned the night before after the boat he was traveling in capsized while attempting to cross the Channel. None of them said that death would stop them from making their own attempt.

There were no Vietnamese to be seen. It seems clear that Vietnamese smugglers tend to take their clients to the camps in northern France when the weather already looks promising and a crossing is imminent.

We had first encountered the new influx of Vietnamese migrants earlier this year, when they came across one of their camps near Dunkirk. It seemed considerably neater and better organized than other migrant camps, with matching tents set up in straight lines and a group cooking a tempting and elaborate meal of fried garlic, onions and Vietnamese herbs.

“They are very organized and united and stay together in the camps. They’re quite something. When they arrive at the coast, we know that the crossing will be done very quickly. These are most likely people with more money than others,” said Mathilde Potel, the French police chief leading the fight against illegal migration in the region.

The Vietnamese themselves have no control over small boat crossings largely under the control of a handful of Iraqi Kurdish gangs. Instead, they negotiate access and times.

“The Vietnamese are not allowed to touch that part of the process (the crossing). We are just supplying customers to (the Kurdish gangs),” said another Vietnamese smuggler, who we call Thanh, who currently lives in Britain. He tells us that the extra money gives priority access to the small boats for their Vietnamese customers.

While the relative costs are clear, the issue of safety is murkier. It is a fact – and perhaps telling – that during the first nine months of 2024, not a single Vietnamese was among the dozens of migrants confirmed killed trying to cross the Channel. But in one incident in October, a Vietnamese migrant was killed in what has become the deadliest year on record for small boat crossings.

It is possible that by paying extra, the Vietnamese could gain access to less crowded boats, making them less likely to sink. But we have not been able to confirm this.

What seems clearer is that Vietnamese smugglers are careful about sending their clients on boats in bad weather. Bac’s text messages to our undercover reporter included specific suggestions about traveling to the camp and the best day to arrive.

“Running a small boat service depends on the weather. You need small waves. And it must be safe… We had nice weather earlier this week and there were still many boats left… It would be nice if you could be here (in Dunkirk) tomorrow. I plan to move (via the Channel) on Thursday morning,” Bac texted.

As they sat outside their tents in two separate camps in the woods near Dunkirk earlier this month, two young men told us nearly identical stories about the events that led them to leave Vietnam to seek a new life. How they had borrowed money to start small businesses in Vietnam, how those businesses had failed, and then how they had borrowed more money from relatives and loan sharks to pay smugglers to bring them to Britain.

“Life in Vietnam is difficult. I couldn’t find a good job. I tried to open a store but failed. I couldn’t pay back the loan, so I have to find a way to make money. I know this is illegal, but I have no other option. I owe (the Vietnamese equivalent of) £50,000. I sold my house, but it wasn’t enough to pay off the debt,” said Tu, 26, as he reached out to pet a kitten that walked by.

Two chickens came out from behind another tent. A mirror hung from a nearby tree. Sockets for charging telephones were available under a separate canopy.

The second migrant, aged 27, described how he reached Europe via China, sometimes on foot or in trucks.

“I heard from my friends in Britain that life is much better there and that I can find a way to earn some money,” said the man, who did not want to give his name.

Are these people victims of human trafficking? It’s unclear. All the Vietnamese migrants we spoke to said they were in debt. If they had ended up working for the smuggling gangs in Britain to pay for their journey and pay off their debts, they would indeed have been trafficked.

We had been trying to lure blond Vietnamese smuggler Tony from a nearby forest to a more neutral area, where his gang – possibly armed, as other gangs certainly are – could pose less of a threat to us. We planned to confront him about his involvement in a lucrative and often deadly criminal industry. But Tony remained wary of leaving his own ‘property’ and became impatient and angry when our colleague, still posing as a potential migrant, refused to follow him into the woods.

‘Why are you staying there? Follow that path. Move quickly! Now,” Tony ordered.

There was a short pause. The sound of birdsong floated over the clearing.

“What an idiot… Do you just want to stand there and get caught by the police?” the smuggler asked with increasing annoyance.

Then he turned away and retreated into the forest.

If our colleague had been a real migrant, she probably would have followed Tony. Other sources told us that once in the camps, migrants were not allowed to leave unless they paid hundreds of dollars to the smugglers.

The Vietnamese gangs may promise a fast, safe, ‘elite’ route to Britain, but the reality is much darker: a criminal industry, backed by threats, with deadly risks and no guarantee of success.

Additional reporting by Kathy Long and Léa Guedj