This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

People-smugglers behind a scheme to bring migrants across the Channel on jet skis are facing jail.



At least 18 people were transported from near Calais to Dymchurch, Kent, in dangerously overcrowded inflatable boats. When the rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs), designed to carry six people, got into trouble and had to be rescued, the gang considered using a three-person jet ski. Had they not been stopped by a National Crime Agency-led surveillance operation, they would have been the first to have tried to transport migrants across the world’s busiest shipping route on jet skis.

Following an Old Bailey trial, six men from the Kent-based gang and their Albanian “travel agents” were convicted of people-smuggling.

The court heard that men, women and children were charged up to £6,000 each to cross the Channel. The smugglers had little boating experience or knowledge of the danger to which they were exposing the migrants.

They are believed to have carried out one successful trip in an RHIB called Rebel. It was found abandoned on the beach at Dymchurch on 11 May 2016 with children’s life jackets on board. When border officials went to investigate, the professed owner, Wayne Bath, claimed to have been out night fishing when he experienced engine trouble.

On 26 May, French police spotted a group of people signalling a boat in the water off Cran d’Escalles beach near Calais. The migrants began to wade out to meet it, but the Antares RHIB left after a parked car signalled with its headlights.

Prosecutor Timothy Probert-Wood QC told jurors they were “clearly not there for a day on the beach”. Two days later, the gang tried again with the newly acquired White Scanner RHIB, under the watch of NCA agents.

The White Scanner picked up 18 migrants from France, including two children aged 16 and 17 and a woman. On the return journey, the boat ran out of fuel and the migrants were forced to bale out as the boat flooded with sea water. They sent desperate text messages, including one that said: “We are in England, tell police, we are drowning.”

The Coastguard helicopter and RNLI launched a rescue operation and found the inflatable vessel. One woman was suffering from hypothermia and was wrapped in a blanket in an attempt to warm her up.

The Old Bailey heard that the Antares had tried to rescue its sister boat but was later found abandoned at sea. A Mitsubishi Shogun used to tow it had been abandoned and set on fire.

In July 2016, the White Scanner two-man crew of Mark Stribling, 35, from Farningham, Kent, and Robert Stilwell, 33, from Dartford, Kent, were jailed.

Undeterred, the gang bought another, larger boat from Southampton – referred to as the Boat With No Name.

NCA operatives planted a device on the boat to listen in as the gang plotted their next attempt to bring migrants to the UK.

On 25 July, Albert Letchford took out the Boat With No Name but ran into rough sea and turned back.

On 13 August, the NCA secretly filmed the Kent gang meeting their Albanian partners in a pub car park. They went together to buy a jet ski with a view to using it to transport migrants from France to Britain. The NCA moved in to arrest them.

The ringleaders were Leonard Powell, from Dartford, and his son Alfie, 39, of no fixed address. Another son, George Powell, had admitted his part in the conspiracy.

Following a trial, Leonard and Alfie Powell were found guilty of conspiring to breach immigration law, along with Wayne Bath, 38, of Sheerness, Kent; Sabah Dulaj, 23, of no fixed address; Albert Letchford, 42, of Dartford; and Arthur Nutaj, 39, of north London.

Alan Viles, 28, of Folkestone, Kent; and Francis Wade, 59, of Rochester, Kent, had denied any involvement in the plot and were found not guilty after a jury deliberated for 29 hours

NCA senior investigator Mark McCormack said the gang was dangerously incompetent.

He said: “We have people controlling vessels with no maritime experience, no sailing experience, who have completed very rudimentary courses of one or two days, trying to cross this busy shipping channel at night in a small vessel not utilising lights or radar. So it increases the risk of migrants coming over and it puts their lives at real risk, which is why we at the NCA were trying to stop those people.”

During the surveillance, one gang member was seen putting in the wrong satnav code.

McCormack said: “That just shows the level of incompetency of the crime group.

“When the Boat With No Name crossed the English Channel, a number of times it crossed the traffic, it did circular pirouettes and was under the bow of a number of container ships. They were rescued in the vicinity of a large container ship that was bearing in on it.”

Judge Mark Dennis QC adjourned sentencing until a date to be fixed.