Dutch police arrest 'major supplier' of Channel migrant boats

Dutch police arrested a suspected major supplier of "unfit" boats used to smuggle migrants across the Channel, where over 50 people died this year trying to reach Britain, Europe's law agency said Thursday.

The 44-year-old Turkish national was arrested by Dutch military police after arriving on a flight at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, in an operation involving Belgian, British and Dutch law enforcement, Eurojust said.

"He is suspected of running an operation that supplied small boats and engines to human smugglers who were active in Belgium and northern France," the Hague-based body said in a statement.

The boats were "highly dangerous and unfit for open water", it said, adding "more than 50 people have died attempting to make the crossing so far in 2024".

The man will now be extradited to Belgium to face human trafficking charges "in the context of the activities of a criminal organisation".

He is suspected of shipping small boats from Turkey and storing them in Germany before they were being brought forward to northern France when needed, Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

Britain has vowed to "smash the gangs" of people smugglers to reduce small boat crossings.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the arrest.

"This is a significant piece of the jigsaw. I'm not pretending it's the silver bullet, there are other steps that are going to be necessary, but this is a very important step," he said.

Since coming to power in July, Starmer's Labour government has been struggling to make good on election promises to reduce irregular immigration.

Over 2,200 people arrived in Britain in small boats so far this month, taking the total up to 32,900 this year, according to British government statistics.

Last week British authorities jailed an Iranian man for 17 years for organising small boat Channel crossings for migrants to enter the UK.

Amanj Hasan Zada, 34, who called himself "the best smuggler", was found guilty of three counts of facilitating illegal immigration.

He was linked to three small boat crossings of Kurds from northern France in November and December 2023, which the NCA said he organised from his home in Lancashire, northwest England.

The conviction came just days after the NCA arrested nine other people in the UK as part of Interpol's largest-ever operation against people smuggling.