Channel crossings: Albanian migrants recruited to the UK by gangs

Albanians account for almost a third of the 39,000 people who have arrived in small boats so far this year, according to UK government figures. 

Senior police and immigration officials on both sides of the Channel are worried by the growing role of Albanian middlemen in facilitating crossings.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has accused the UK of scapegoating his fellow citizens to excuse its "failed policies" on borders and migration. 

The BBC has seen how towns near the Albanian capital Tirana have been left almost empty, and how many young Albanians were being lured to the French coast, Qazet.az reports.

In the French town of Dunkirk this summer, eyewitnesses say Albanians occupied part of the main migrant camp there. 

And small hotels around the station - like Hotel Bretagne and Le Lion d'Or - are now established staging posts for Albanian migrants: their doors permanently closed, no staff in sight, a 24-hour phone number pinned to the glass.

These are some of the places Albanian middlemen wait for clients - acting as a critical link with the small boat crossings dominated by Iraqi-Kurdish networks.

"In France, there are people who wait for you," one Albanian man told me, after reaching the UK by small boat this summer. "Everybody in the world knows where to go, if you want to get to England."