One in five small boat crossings set off from Belgium as people smugglers try to dodge border patrols

One in five small boat crossings set off from Belgium while people smugglers attempt to dodge police patrols, a senior Border Force officer has revealed.

The illegal migrants in France now take part in out "taxi operations", whereby boats are launched off beaches further north in a bid to duck authorities.

The rubber dinghies then sail down the coastline and pick up migrants waiting along Belgian and French shores.

A senior Border Force officer told The Times: "One in five boats are being launched from Belgium. It’s a big problem. They’re launching further and further up the coast."

However, Border Force insiders said that, due to the Belgian coastline hosting a series of holiday hotspots, authorities were more prepared than the French to take action against the small boats.

As a result, the border agencies have said they are more hopeful with working with the Belgians.

“They (the Belgian authorities) have got a vested interest in a way that the French do not, so co-operation with Belgium is starting from a better place than with France,” the Border Force officer added.

Just on Saturday, hundreds of small boat migrants launched over a massive stretch of French and Belgian coastline today, in an effort to avoid police beach patrols.

GB News tallied up around 360 illegal migrants as they were brought to the Border Force processing centre at Dover harbour over the course of the day.

On Friday, some 55 migrants arrived on British shores as well, taking the total number of illegal crossings to close to 6,800.

A senior maritime source told the People's Channel: "People smugglers pushed off boats from well into Belgium, all the way down to a beach at Treport, south of the Somme.

"That's almost 100 miles of coastline the criminal gangs are using for launches on the same day."

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They added it was an "obvious effort" to dodge beach patrols, which are generally concentrated across the coastal areas of Dunkirk and Calais.

Now, with even more crossings recorded on Sunday, some 890 migrants have made the illegal journey over the course of the Bank Holiday weekend so far.

The latest surge in crossings comes a little more than a week after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood signed a three-year agreement to pay France £662million to boost their beach patrols.

The deal plans to boost the number of French police on coastal patrol duties from around 700 to 1,100.

A Home Office spokesman said: "This Government is bearing down on small boat crossings.

"The Home Secretary has signed a landmark new deal with France to boost enforcement action on beaches and put people smugglers behind bars.

"This builds on joint work that has stopped over 42,000 illegal migrants attempting to cross the channel since the election."