People smugglers are dangerously overloading boats in the Channel by offering desperate migrants crossings for less than £500 billed as cut-price Christmas deals.
Kurdish gangsters are making the callous offers in Calais just days after four people died when their tiny boat sank in the icy waters. And the prices on offer are believed to be the cheapest fees ever charged for entering the UK illegally by boat.
Last night, Lucy Halliday of the Care4Calais charity said: “Some are paying as little as €500 (£435). The smugglers are taking what they can to fill boats and the lower the price, the more they try to get on board. We know they’re overcrowded.”
