Thousands of migrants are attempting to reach Britain on ferries from the Spanish port of Bilbao following the close of the Jungle camp in Calais, it was revealed today.
Police have stopped 1,765 people attempting to stowaway at the port on the Basque coast this year – five times more than in all of 2016.
Small encampments of tents have grown up near the ferry terminal, under motorways and in abandoned properties, Spanish media reported.
Many have attempted to board Brittany Ferries’ vessels which sail three times a week to Portsmouth, carrying mostly British holidaymakers (stock photo)
The majority of the migrants are from Albania, but they also include desperate refugees fleeing war zones in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Every day police at the port are stopping migrants who attempt to sneak onto passenger ferries or into freight containers.
Police have increased patrols, installed new cameras and motion sensors and reinforced fences in a bid to stop the situation getting out of hand.
On Monday the Civil Guard police caught 26 stowaways attempting to board ferries and container ships.
Police have stopped 1,765 people attempting to stowaway at the port on the Basque coast this year – five times more than in all of 2016. Pictured: The port of Bilbao
Many have attempted to board Brittany Ferries’ vessels which sail three times a week to Portsmouth, carrying mostly British holidaymakers.
Around 100 migrants, mostly young Albanian men with some under 18, are living in tents just 300 meters from the ferry terminal, El Pais newspaper reported.
They use binoculars to monitor the Guardia Civil police and to see which containers are being searched. The officers use CO2 sensors to detect people within the large shipping containers. Police also search cars, caravans and lorries.
Brittany Ferries’ freight ship Pelican carries around 100 unaccompanied containers twice a week from Bilbao to Poole, Dorset.
Entering the port at Bilbao is not a criminal offence. The migrants can be handed over to the National Police’s Immigration Department and can be expelled from Spain.
But many are not expelled and a Guardia Civil lieutenant at the port told El Pais: ‘Sometimes they hide in the containers twice in the same day. We have increased our security and our controls so that the passage is closed to anybody who has not paid their fare.
‘It’s a heavy workload and it is increasing.
‘The Albanian immigrants are distinct from the refugees. They come with enough money and telephones to last for weeks, and they operate in a different way.’
Bilbao, on the Bay of Biscay in northern Spain, became a focus for people-smuggling mafia gangs following the closure of the Jungle last autumn.
Associate director of Brittany Ferries, Roberto Castilla, said 66 migrants have been arrested in the UK after being caught on ferries from Bilbao. Of those, 35 were sent back to Spain.
Mr Castilla said: ‘The rest were minors or people from war zones who requested asylum.’
Ferry companies are fined by the UK for every stowaway who reaches Britain – and must pay for the flights back to Spain.
But it is not known how many migrants are successfully making the journey without being caught.
Local newspaper El Correo described the development as ‘a problem of the first order’.
A source at the port said the closure of the Jungle camp in Calais had had ‘a pernicious effect’ on Bilbao, which had become ‘an alternative route’ to the UK.
The source told El Correo there has been a ‘significant rise in the number of attempts to access the ships’, adding: ‘We are intensively patrolling the points of greater risk of stowaways. We have detected small settlements under motorways and in abandoned buildings.’
Last May 27 migrants were caught in one day trying to board ferries from Bilbao to Portsmouth.
They were mostly refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In June another 15 were found in a single day.
And last month a Romanian couple attempted to smuggle eight people in a shipment of bananas in a rented lorry.
The majority of those using Bilbao as a route to the UK are from Albania in the Balkans.
In June the UK’s National Crime Agency warned that Albanian gangs were increasingly involved in violent organised crime in Britain.
The NCA said in a report: ‘Albanian crime groups have established a high-profile influence within UK organised crime, and have considerable control across the UK drug trafficking market, with particular impact and high-level influence on the cocaine market.’
The report said Albanians make up 0.8 per cent of organised criminals in the UK, adding: ‘London is their primary hub, but they are established across the UK.’