Albanian people smugglers are now using the Queen’s funeral to promote Channel crossing deals

Shameless Albanian people-smuggling gangs are using the Queen’s funeral to promote cut-price deals for migrants seeking to cross the Channel.

They are using social media to push half-price deals of £1,600 per person to enable any migrant who “wants to take part in the funeral of this lady” to do so before the event next Monday.

The advertisements on TikTok carry images of the Queen in a mauve coat and hat and also claim the people smugglers will be able to take families and children on the perilous 21-mile journey across the Dover straits.

The £1,600 is half the price of the previous cheapest “summer sale” deals of £3,000 to £3,500 that people-smuggling gangs were offering just two months ago.

The promotions appear to be primarily targeted at Albanians, who now account for about 60 per cent of the record number of arrivals across the Channel this summer.

The people smugglers have also been offering “children-for-free” deals in an effort to encourage families to make the dangerous crossing.

Border Force officials revealed that during the Tory leadership race, the traffickers sought to entice more migrants to cross by warning that they faced a crackdown once a new government was formed under Liz Truss.

The new Prime Minister has pledged to negotiate more Rwanda-style asylum deportation deals, maintain the Navy’s role overseeing the Channel operation and take a tougher approach with France to end the “deadly trade” of the people smugglers.

Government sources said the people smugglers’ social media promotions were “totally unacceptable.” 

“This government is already tackling this deceitful online propaganda, with law enforcement, social media companies and overseas governments,” they said.

“No one should question this government’s determination to break the business model of the criminal gangs as every government department has been involved in tackling the issue of illegal migration.”

The TikTok advert promoting the cut-price crossings were uploaded just as the Queen’s coffin arrived in Edinburgh on Sunday, on its journey to lay in state in Westminster Hall from Wednesday.

'Famlies and children' also accepted

Bearing a picture of the Queen during a walkabout, it asked: “Who will participate in the funeral of this lady? It is still possible for 1900 Euros if you contact me. We also accept families and children in our boats, thank you.”

The Telegraph has previously revealed Albanian Channel migrants posting pictures of themselves sightseeing at London’s top tourist destinations including the London Eye and Horseguards Parade.

Suella Braverman, the new Home Secretary, is understood to want to detain more migrants on arrival in detention facilities, similar to the Greek-style camps proposed by her predecessor Priti Patel, and establish joint Anglo-French patrols on the French beaches to disrupt the people smugglers and prevent more departures.

Hundreds more migrants were intercepted crossing the English Channel in small boats over the weekend as people smugglers took advantage of calm conditions at sea.

A total of 253 were detained on Sunday after eight incidents according to official figures from the Ministry of Defence. And dozens more have arrived on Monday as the numbers continue to swell.

So far in September, 2,917 migrants have made the treacherous 21-mile crossings while the number of migrants known to have arrived so far this year now stands at 27,960, in 713 boats, according to official government figures.

It is just 566 short of the record 28,526 people who made the clandestine trip across the English Channel in 2021. August was a record month with 8,644 in 189 incidents - more than the 8,410 who made the crossing in dinghies and other small boats in the whole of 2020.