Migrants offered new 'secure backdoor route' to UK

ALBANIAN migrants are being told to enter the United Kingdom via Dublin Airport, a route advertised as £2,500 cheaper than the infamous Channel crossing, an investigation has found.

Post-Brexit soft border controls between Ireland and the UK are being exploited by Albanian people smugglers to bring desperate asylum seekers — often with fake European Union papers — into Britain.

The Albanians are working with Irish criminal gangs to fly migrants into Dublin. There, an Irish taxi driver is arranged to sneak the migrants into Britain on ferries.

The backdoor route costs the migrants around £2,500 per person with a further £300 to £400 for fake ID bought in Albania.

For comparison, it costs an average of £5,000 to £5,500 for an illegal Channel crossing in a small boat.

One gang organiser told an undercover Telegraph reporter the trips were staged "every day".

He said: "You must get to Dublin. We have the price of £2,500 from Dublin to England. It’s 100 percent secure.

"You need to get a European fake ID so you can get easily to Dublin."

The number of Albanians crossing the Channel on small boats has soared in recent months, even though the UK considers Albania a "safe and prosperous country", according to Home Office statistics released on Thursday.

About 2,165 Albanians arrived in the UK via this route in the first six months of 2022, compared with just 23 in the same period last year.