The UK is attempting a crackdown on boat migrants trying to slip into the country unseen by using leisure yachts and sailing to backwater ports hundreds of miles from the southern beaches where dinghy migrants typically arrive.
Britain’s migrant boat crisis is roaring on, with nearly one thousand trafficked dinghy illegals arriving along the south coast in the past week. Such crossings are often conducted in broad daylight and with some level of collusion with authorities, intending for the migrant customers of traffickers to be escorted to Britain by the government and entered into the refugee system. Yet a second and far quieter network of trafficking also appears to be afoot, with would-be illegal migrants paying considerably higher rates to slip into the country unseen and unrecorded to enter into the underground ‘black’ economy.
The phenomenon of yacht-operating smugglers was highlighted this week with the interception of such a boat in West Sussex, the National Crime Agency (NCA) announced, with five men arrested in Chichester Marina, 100 miles west of the more familiar migrant landing spots of Pett, Dungeness, or Dover. Two crew members, a Briton and an Albanian, were arrested on “suspicion of facilitating illegal immigration to the UK” were arrested, and three members of a “shore party” — a Briton and two Albanians — were also taken into custody.
Seven Albanian passengers found on the yacht [top, right] were “dealt with by the immigration authorities”, the NCA said.
The government launched Operation Kraken last year to improve border security and combat smugglers using yachts to move people — including terrorists — as well as drugs and other contraband. The public was also called on to be vigilant, and report suspicious activity, including boats “moored up in strange or isolated places or at strange times” and unloading things or “scared or suspicious people”, or meeting with other boats and exchanging “items”, and “people making attempts to signal or guide boats offshore”.
For those with a closer connection to the sea — those working in the maritime industry — other things to watch out for included “nervous crew who show a lack of knowledge of maritime protocols”, unusual modified boats, people paying cash to buy equipment, people who own boats yet seem to know very little about how to use them safely, unusual boat charters, and “people taking an interest in port security or buildings”.
The Daily Telegraph notes the wide reach of Operation Kraken across the UK illustrates just how far yacht-smuggled people may be travelling to attempt to enter Britain unseen. The report states a sign warning of migrant yachts has been posted in even remote backwater places like Airmyn in Yorkshire, which sits on a tributary to the Humber 35 miles inland and perhaps 250 miles north of where migrant smuggler boats are typically brought ashore.
The poster shows a cartoon of a woman walking her dog at night, observing a moonlit sailboat crowded with people close to shore. Labelled Project Kraken, the poster declares: “Boats arriving at unusual times? Report it. Let’s sort it.” Illustrating the wide range of government bodies interested in getting the public snooping on the coast, the poster carried the inscriptions of Border Force, the Joint Maritime Security Centre, the National Crime Agency, and Action Counter Terrorism.
The paper also reported on advertising of yacht smuggling operations aimed at Albanians on websites like TikTok, and cites the remarks of Tony Smith, the former director general of Border Force, who said of the campaign: “It is more likely to be serious organised crime as opposed to opportunistic illegal migrants… these are people who have got money. This has always been a risk with the length of coastline we have. You cannot put a Border Force officer in every little harbour and monitor every beach and inlet.”
While the number of migrants coming ashore clandestinely by yacht is obviously not known, there have been several instances of successful interceptions of attempted landings beyond the West Sussex arrests this week. In 2025, a “luxury” yacht was searched off the coast of Cornwall, England’s rural and most south-western point, and 20 Albanians were discovered “hidden below deck”. The crew were arrested and the passengers “detained pending removal”.
Earlier this year, two Ukrainian citizens were jailed in Britain for crewing the “VIP Yacht” Uforia [top, left], which was intercepted while at sea by Border Force in Summer 2025 while smuggling migrants from France to the United Kingdom with four Albanians and one Vietnamese citizen aboard. Once found by Border Force, one of the Albanians was found to already be wanted by police over drug offences in the United Kingdom, “indicating he had been in the UK illegally previously”.
The same yacht was known to have made a “series of previous crossings” over the summers of 2024 and 2025 before it was finally intercepted following a joint operation with France.
NCA Branch Commander Saju Sasikumar said: “These men ran what can only be described as a kind of ferry service, moving small numbers of people over the channel each time, but charging them a premium price for the service.”
One remarkable case came in 2022 when a yacht ran aground off the coast of East Sussex. The yacht Moon wasn’t initially seen as suspicious, but the fact that the skipper was inexpert enough to not know he was attempting to enter harbour at low tide, leading to it running aground, drew attention to it. Security camera footage showed migrants leaping from the yacht and attempting to swim ashore. Border Force rounded up 14 Iranians, Iraqis, and Albanians. The two crew members were later found guilty of smuggling offences.