Inside secret police warehouse as Germany targets small boats gangs

Germany has carried out its first raids under a new law to crack down on smugglers using the country as a staging post for small boat crossings on the English Channel, the BBC has learned.

More than 9,000 life jackets, dozens of dinghies and engines and 360 pumps were seized by police this spring during a joint operation involving the UK, France and Germany in the North Rhine-Westphalia region.

The dinghies and equipment are now being stored at a secret location that the BBC was given special access to.

The boats could have taken more than 2,000 migrants across the Channel illegally, according to the UK's National Crime Agency.

Gangs have long used garages or warehouses to store equipment in western Germany before transporting it to northern France, but Berlin passed a law last December making it a specific criminal offence to facilitate migrant smuggling to the UK.

Before that, key anti-smuggling laws in Germany only applied to nations within the EU's zone of free movement, not to third countries, which included the UK post-Brexit.

Raids have happened in Germany before, but often relied on French or Belgian warrants.

In 2024, Germany said it would tighten its laws to make it easier to prosecute those helping to ferry migrants to the UK, as part of a new plan agreed between the two countries.