pounds 250 to buy a new life in Britain

WHEN POLICE found 103 Romanians crammed into the back of a lorry in Kent this month, the discovery focused attention on the cheap end of a multi-million pound industry.

People-smuggling has become big business for an estimated 20 international organised crime gangs that are bringing between 2,000 and 4,000 illegal immigrants into Britain every month.

The Romanians probably paid about pounds 250 a head to be taken to a safe house in Belgium before being driven to England in a lorry trailer, but some of the Chinese immigrants who arrive illegally in Chinatown, central London, pay up to pounds 15,000 for a "first-class ticket". For this price they can get fake identification, a flight, the help of a bent solicitor and a job in a kitchen.

According to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), people- smuggling is a growing problem that is attracting an increasing number of highly organised gangs. NCIS says that while some of the people being brought in by the crime gangs are among the estimated 38,000 people who applied for asylum this year, most are economic migrants looking for a better life.

There are two basic smuggling systems. People going "first class" use counterfeit or forged original documents. The method can also involve people impersonating the legitimate owners of the documents. The "second- class" route involves hiding in the back of a lorry or small boat.

The Chinese pay the most to be smuggled into Britain. They sometimes pay in instalments with families in China being charged exorbitant interest on outstanding balances. One of the largest smuggling groups is known to bring in 250 people a month, and a typical route involves a flight to Hong Kong or Singapore, with an onward connection to Moscow, Prague or Budapest.

Smugglers who arrange the European end of the transport sometimes organise their convoys along military lines, with a forward reconnaissance vehicle, a rear guard, and drivers who use night-vision goggles and walkie-talkies to take their human cargo across the frontier. Once inside the EU, movement is easy with few border controls. They are taken to France, Belgium or the Netherlands and kept in a safe house before crossing to Britain via ferry or the Channel tunnel with fake papers, or hidden in the back of a lorry. Occasionally a small boat brings them across.

Dover is the most popular port of arrival, but Hull, Felixstowe, Harwich and south coast ports are also used.

Fixers from the Sub- continent usually charge their Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan clients about pounds 2,000 a person. They provide false documents to get them into Prague or Moscow, then follow the same route as the Chinese.

A growth area for both gangs has been in the trafficking of eastern Europeans, most noticeably Romanians, Slovaks and Czechs. Albanians, often pretending to be from the Serbian province of Kosovo, are the biggest group coming into the UK . They pay about pounds 200 each to be smuggled in the back of a lorry to Germany and then on to the Netherlands. A further pounds 50 gets them a ride in the back of a lorry to the UK.

Once in Britain most migrants head for London where some of the deals include advice on how to claim benefit and how to apply for asylum.

Many of the criminals are using established drug routes to bring in their human cargo. Smuggling people has proved to be a profitable extra income for the gangs, but unlike drug trafficking does not carry the risk of a heavy jail sentence."People have become just another commodity to make money from," said an NCIS detective.