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German police investigate dinghy sales to stop people smuggling across the Channel

The German police, in collaboration with colleagues in France and Great Britain, will take action against people smugglers who buy rubber boats and outboard motors in Germany to transport migrants. The police tell DPA news agency that there are signals that boats, motorcycles and life jackets from Germany are being used for this.

About 90 percent of the dinghies and motorbikes used for people smuggling across the Channel come from Germany, the French police estimate. In Germany, attempts are now being made to gain insight into the distribution networks of people smugglers and then to break them up.

After purchase in Germany, the items are usually first brought to Belgium, where they are sold on. This has to do with the fact that inflatable boats and boat motors in the north of France are nowadays only available on presentation of an ID card and after issuing a telephone number.

Drowned Migrants

The French and British have long been working together against smugglers’ gangs trying to get migrants to England. Police on both sides of the Channel are regularly confronted with boats carrying migrants that capsize, often with fatal consequences. Drowned last November 27 migrants for Calais when their boat capsized.

The Bundestag also criticizes the project of the German police. “I think the fact that Germany wants to participate in ways to make the sale of inflatable boats more difficult to prevent crossings across the Channel is completely wrong,” said Die Linke parliamentarian Clara Bünger.

Instead of an approach focused on inflatable boats, Bünger wants to look at creating safe and legal routes to the EU and Great Britain. “Criminalization does not mean that there is no more migration, it makes the flight more dangerous and more expensive and it forces refugees to depend on smugglers.”

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