Police pantomime and migrants shopping for life jackets: Inside the route to the Channel

In the darkness of the dunes more than 100 migrants are poised, getting ready to run.

Just a single police 4x4 is patrolling the two-mile-long beach and, with the tide out, it is 400 metres from the dunes to water.

At 7am, while it is still dark, the first group makes the 400-metre dash to water.

The 4x4 is half a mile away, but its headlights pick them out as it draws closer. They up their pace, but the light grows around them as they splash through pools on the sand.

Then the 4x4 circles, like an ineffective sheepdog. The group scatters around the bleeping vehicle.

Officers get out with flashlights - but to do what? One falls over and another shouts - there are only three of them to stop a group of 30.

On the migrants go. Then the pantomime stops.

Everyone is still now.

Officers shine their torches, picking out the migrants standing in the break of the waves - one has a child in a pink coat on his shoulders.

Through a network of international people smugglers, they have travelled from all corners of the world to get here in an attempt to make it to the UK.

We, too, came to this point through a smuggler.

The international smuggling network

Our journey began in London with Ali, not his real name, who has lost count of the number of people he smuggled into the UK.

He used to pack people into lorries and acted as a taxi driver across Europe. He was often paid through UK-based restaurants and money exchanges.

He fled war-torn Iraq more than 20 years ago, smuggling himself across the Channel in the back of a lorry.

Aged 16, he had dreams of a peaceful life as a London shopkeeper. His claims to get asylum failed, but he has been able to move between the UK and France, at times working the migrant camps in France as part of a criminal network helping others illegally enter the UK.

People-smuggling bosses are "everywhere", he says.

Describing the Kurdish network he worked for, Ali says: "It's not one person, you have many people with connections together - one here in London, one is from Turkey, one is in Belgium, one from Holland."

"All the time hiding in the jungle [French migrant camps] are the workers," says Ali.

"But the boss - nobody will find him. It's the middlemen who are working there. The boss, he buys the boats and sends people the boats."

Ali says the boats are mostly purchased in Germany and a ticket for one across the Channel costs £2,000-£3,000 a person.

He agreed to give us an insight into his world, connecting us to one of his contacts still living in a migrant camp called Teteghem, near Dunkirk.

Shopping for lifejackets

After travelling to Dunkirk, the contact tipped us off that "70 people with life jackets [are] going to the bus stop".

Sure enough, in broad daylight, we found a large group making its way along the side of a highway - walking towards a bus stop, directly past police officers.

They carried fluorescent life jackets slung over shoulders or concealed in bin bags.

Earlier we had discovered the migrants purchasing the life jackets for €30 each in the local Decathlon sports store.

We filmed them trying the jackets on, while a crate of new jackets arrived to replenish stock.

We also filmed a group carrying handfuls of life jackets down the main high road towards Teteghem camp.

Decathlon told us it doesn't sell in bulk and is in regular contact with authorities.

Boarding the bus at Grande-Synthe, two young men from Afghanistan told us they hoped today would be their chance to get to the UK - but no one seemed to know where the bus was going.

While on board we spotted a man in a cap, conferring with different people and eyeing us suspiciously.

When everyone spilled out at Gravelines, he appeared to lead the group through the town's backstreets and into the countryside towards the coast.

Ali had told us that these middlemen "get everyone ready" after a smuggling boss decides timings.

The aborted crossing

We would later see the middleman shepherding a different group in the early hours of the morning.

Then on the water's edge - after migrants were chased across Petit-Fort-Philippe beach by the police 4x4 - there he was again, the only one standing in the water without a life jacket, seemingly with no intention to travel.

Having waited all night for their moment, this group's luck was out.

Their boat, already half loaded further up the coast, was coming in for them when it ran into trouble.

The man in the cap seemed to sense it and moved them along. Then around 40 migrants in life jackets spilled out of the soft-sided dingy onto the beach.

"Puncture," one man told me as they walked back to the dunes.

The pump being used to re-inflate the 20-foot vessel intended to carry 70 people was no bigger than one you would use for a children's dinghy.

The aborted trip delayed the release of thousands of pounds to smugglers - with cash often held in trust until their clients reach the UK.

Ali says he sometimes takes payment from the smuggled person's family members in the UK and uses UK-based individuals or businesses as trustees to hold the cash.

"I have some restaurants or some money changers and some people I trust, and I tell them [to] go put the money there," he says.

"And the guy he will call me. They say they've got the people's money here - and he gives me the ok."

Once the person arrives in the UK, Ali gets his money.

One British-based mother told us she paid £45,000 to get a family of four to the UK from Turkey.

Using location apps, family in the UK were able to track the journey through Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, and France.

The two children aged under 11 went half price.

The fatal risk of the Channel

On the beach, we saw many half-price travellers being carried down to the shore: children, toddlers, babies in arms.

That morning, we filmed two of the three successful launches that were later recorded by the Home Office.

They carried 210 migrants between them - pushing the year's total to 36,900, surpassing 2024.

French police were present during both launches - but mostly as observers.

Although, when one Iranian man suspiciously fell from the boat, clearly not intending to travel, he was detained along with three others as a suspected smuggler.

The National Crime Agency says more than 50 organised crime groups have been dismantled in joint operations with the French.

The NCA have made 190 arrests in the past year, but that hasn't stopped the flow of people.

There are 120 miles of coastline from Dunkirk to Dieppe, the furthest south departure point.

You could say it's like finding a needle in a haystack, but, with just a bit of local intelligence, we were able to film two of three launches that happened during the three days we were in France and spot some gang members organising the migrants.

It raises the question as to whether French police could do more to intercept departures, confiscate boats and arrest the facilitators.

A few hours after we watched the dinghies depart, a violent storm struck the French coast, closing the window of travel.

It tore down the makeshift tents in Teteghem camp, bringing more misery for those left behind.

More than 100 people have drowned while making the crossing in the past two years.

But with tens of thousands making it across during that period, many are willing to take the risk.

Standing on the shoreline I watched a family from Sudan with three toddlers walk from the sea, having missed their boat.

I warned them of the danger they faced on the Channel, telling the father that 24 people have died this year.

"Sudan is more dangerous," he replied.

Additional reporting by Nick Stylianou, specialist producer