UK-registered firms linked to payments for small-boat crossings, BBC finds

The crossing would cost £2,700 for two people, he said.

Back in the UK, we then visited the south-east London phone shop on three occasions, secretly filming conversations with two shop workers.

This time, an undercover researcher posed as a UK-based family member of a migrant attempting to cross the Channel.

One man explained from behind the counter that the money would be transferred to the smugglers only after a successful crossing.

"If your people do not cross, if he tells me to return your money back to you, I'll do it," although he acknowledged that a safe crossing could not be guaranteed.

"You can't count on boats, you never know, God forbid the boat sinks, and all of them [drown]."

We did not hand over any cash.

When we returned later to confront the man, he denied moving money for people smugglers.

"We don't move money… we have only phone shop," he said.

The mobile phone shop, and the other two UK firms we investigated, are all listed at Companies House, the government's official registry of businesses.

We verified that Ahmad had given us correct bank details for both the Newcastle and Cambridgeshire firms.

Our findings suggest smugglers are untroubled by the efforts the government has made to try to "smash the gangs", says Keatinge, founding director of Rusi's Centre for Finance and Security.

The government has made it a priority to "break" the business model of the people-smuggling gangs.

In January 2025, announcing sanctions on suspected people smugglers, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: "If you're going to smash a gang that is driven by money, follow the money."

But recent cases suggest authorities have struggled to recover the millions of pounds generated by the smuggling trade each year before it leaves the UK.

In April, two people smugglers were jailed in Cardiff for organising the illegal entry of hundreds of migrants, but little of the profits they made could be traced.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) says the pair had very few assets in the UK and most of the money had been transferred to the offenders' home country, Iraq.

Authorities have recovered 10% of the money found to have been made by convicted people smugglers since 2020, according to figures from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) obtained by the BBC.

In that time, under the Proceeds of Crime Act, courts ruled that 45 people smugglers convicted in the UK had made more than £16m from their crimes - a figure known as the "criminal benefit".

But judges issued confiscation orders totalling only £2.9m, based on assets that authorities were able to identify as linked to the crimes. As of February, £1.6m had been recovered.

The CPS says people smugglers are "only in it for the money" and it works to deprive them of their profits "wherever possible".

However - referring to the confiscation orders totalling £2.9m - the CPS added that it was "only able to obtain assets which are available at the time".

Confronted on the phone by our undercover researcher, Ahmad denied any involvement in people smuggling. Zia did not respond to repeated requests to comment.

The owner of the Newcastle wholesale business said they "strongly reject any suggestion that we have knowingly or negligently enabled criminal activity" and promised to co-operate fully with authorities.

The Cambridgeshire car wash did not respond to our request for comment.

Tackling the criminal networks behind people smuggling remains a top priority and the NCA is devoting more resources to it than ever, says the agency's deputy director Dan Cannatella-Barcroft.

There are about 100 active NCA investigations into the "top tier of gangs and individuals involved", he adds. "We are in no doubt that we are making the UK a more difficult place for them to target and operate in."

Migration minister Mike Tapp MP told us there is "a lot of investigative work that goes on behind the scenes", in part, looking at money transfers.

Asked about smuggler Ahmad's use of UK-registered companies' bank accounts, Tapp says he would "love to see more" of the results of our investigation but could not "go into any detail on that".

Criminal gangs are agile and continuously changing their methods, he says, and "it's important we keep up with that and we're continuously pressing for that".

Additional reporting by Victoria Archer