25 inflatable boats seized at East Midlands Airport in people smuggling crackdown

Twenty-five inflatable boats that were bound for Channel migrants' smugglers have been confiscated in what is the first such seizure via an air freight route.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said that the boats, which were about nine meters in length, were intercepted on pallets in a consignment being transported from Turkey to the Netherlands by way of an air freight route through a freight hub at East Midlands Airport. The agency, along with the Border Force, confiscated the shipment on Friday, October 2.

According to the NCA, each boat would have been able to carry about 70 migrants across the Channel, which means that the consignment could have carried about 1,700 migrants. This is the second seizure of a large consignment of small boats and equipment in the UK in 2026, but it is the first time such a detection has been made in air freight. In July, 25 boats and 25 engines were confiscated in a maritime consignment at Felixstowe, Suffolk.

According to Craig Turner, deputy director of investigations at the NCA, "I have no doubt that the vessels we have been able to confiscate here would have otherwise been used to endanger the lives of thousands of people in the Channel, had we not intervened."

According to him, "the operation has resulted in the confiscation of over 1,600 boats and engines, which is driving up the price of the boats and engines, making it harder to get to the coast, reducing the profit margins of the criminal gangs involved."

Anna Turley, border security minister, stated that "it comes as yet another blow to the vile smuggling gangs, with this summer witnessing the fewest small boat landings since 2020 and arrests for immigration crime up by 74 per cent compared to last year."

The NCA claims there are around 100 gangs under investigation for organised immigration crime.