Ministers are putting the UK at risk by 'willingly turning a blind eye' to gangs smuggling migrants and drugs on yachts into Britain via quiet villages, officials have warned.

Smugglers are turning to yachts to provide the clandestine route for people to enter the UK illegally while avoiding detection, typically for those not wishing to claim asylum.

It's being warned that smugglers are increasingly turning to more inland destinations to load and unload their cargo - in many cases people who may be coming to the UK to work illegally or otherwise evade authorities.

A National Crime Agency campaign aimed at encouraging the public to report suspicious vessels, Project Kraken, has been relaunched in villages more than 30 miles away from the coast.

It comes after a spate of smuggling stings which have revealed private pleasure crafts carrying up to two dozen people, drugs or other goods crammed under deck after they attempted to arrive in the UK. 

Just this week, five men were arrested after a yacht carrying seven Albanian nationals was stopped off the south coast of England.

Yachts carrying migrants have been foiled all around Britain's coastline, including off the coasts of Newquay, Brixham, and Chichester. But less conventional targets have also included the village or Rye, East Sussex, two miles inland.

Officials have now warned the Government has no grip on the crisis - with successful finds almost entirely dependent on tip-offs or luck. 

They say this allows people who may have criminal records, have previously have been deported, or are vulnerable to exploitation to enter the country unchecked.

The NCA is understood to have over 100 live investigations into what sources called 'the highest level of people smuggling' underway.

But Lucy Moreton, professional officer at the Immigration Services Union, told the Daily Mail the Government is 'putting the UK at risk' and has no idea of the scale of the problem.

She said Border Force and other enforcement agencies don't have enough resources and spend what they do have almost exclusively on combating small boats. 

'The Government now willingly turns a blind eye,' she told the Daily Mail.

'We know it [yacht smuggling] is happening, but we do not know the extent. The reason we do not know is we do not look, and ultimately we cannot afford to look. 

'We are putting the UK at risk by not looking but we cannot afford to look.'

She added that those arriving via yacht are typically not in the UK to claim asylum or register for benefits, instead 'they are coming to the UK for another reason and whatever the reason, it is not a good one'.

'The reason you do it that way rather than jump on a small boat is not to be fingerprinted.' 

Rather than declare themselves to authorities, Ms Moreton said those who arrive via yacht are purposely trying to avoid detection, often because they are already known to authorities or have deportation orders against them.

She pointed to a lack of resources for border agents, adding: 'The attention is all on small boats.

'The Border Force do not have enough budget to meet their head count. What little presence we used to have in the maritime industry, building up connections and intelligence that would enable us to disrupt this, it has all been removed.'

Researcher for the Oxford Migration Observatory Mihnea Cuibus agreed: 'It is partly because of a lack of resources because of course this is really hard to monitor and hard to track.

'One does sympathise that this would be very hard to get a handle on and at the same time the Border Force has put a lot of its resources into the small boats phenomenon but there are not enough to also deal with this.'

He added that the 'average' asylum seeker generally doesn't arrive in Britain on yachts - citing the extra expense.

Estimates show that while the cost of a place on a small boat hovers around £1,000 to £2,000, passage on a yacht is more in the region of £15,000. 

'It's likely that a lot of people coming in on yachts, a lot of them don't plan on claiming asylum in the UK,' Mr Cuibus said. 

In a report last year, John Tuckett, the chief inspector of Borders and Immigration, said 'at the most basic level', Border Force did not even know how many locations could be used for illegal landings.

He said Home Office Intelligence estimated that there were between 7,000 to 9,000.

Mr Tuckett raised concerns about a declining Border Force budget, poor data collection and a reliance on voluntary declarations when yachts arrive at British ports.

Small ports and airfields were first identified as a potential weakness in Britain's border security measures as long ago as 2002.

Concerns about the vulnerability of Britain's coastline were raised in two reports in 2010 and 2011 by John Vine, the then independent inspector of borders. Both found small ports were at risk from people smuggling.

In tackling the issue, authorities rely on tipoffs or information from the public, who are asked to watch for suspicious activity. 

In a sign the gangs behind the trade are heading closer and closer inland, Airmyn, a Yorkshire village with a population of just 800, has been flagged as one location for 'suspicious' vessels - despite being some 35 miles from the coast.

The village, which sits on the River Ouse, has seen posters erected asking locals to consider if they've spotted 'boats arriving at unusual times'.

The signs, erected as part of Project Kraken, urge members of the public to 'report it' and 'sort it', providing contact details for the UK Border Watch via Crimestoppers.

The warning posters are sponsored by Border Force, the Joint Maritime Security Centre, National Police Chiefs' Council, NCA and Counter Terrorism Police.

While some villagers were reportedly left bemused by the signs, experts have warned everyone should be on the lookout for potential signs of smuggling, as authorities cannot police every harbour in Britain. 

The UK's Border Force says warning signs to look out for include boats unloading scared or suspicious people, seeing boats moored in isolated places or at strange times, and people trying to signal or guide boats offshore.

In July last year, a yacht was stopped by Border Force officials near the Isle of Wight after French authorities raised concerns about the craft.

Inside, they found four Albanian men and a lone Vietnamese girl, who was later placed into foster care. 

Vladyslav Cherniavskyi, 38, and Oleksandr Yavtushenko, 43, were jailed in March over their 'premium service' which saw them carry out at least eight smuggling trips before they were caught. 

Another boat ran aground in Rye, East Sussex, while carrying 14 migrants, prompting them to jump overboard and run for the river bank.

It sailed straight past the local harbour office and downriver before becoming stuck after arriving late on the tide in February 2022.

Fourteen people, including two children, from Iran, Iraq and Albania were later detained by Border Force.

Another group of migrants were only discovered because their boat developed a mechanical fault while off the coast of Devon and they needed rescuing.

Rasty Hassan, 27, who had six failed asylum applications to the UK, was aboard the vessel with a group that included an Iraqi family with four children, one just ten months old.

A lifeboat crew from Brixham launched a rescue mission after receiving a distress call from crew, but were refused access to the ship.

They instead towed the vessel nine miles to Brixham Marina, where Hassan was arrested. He was later jailed for two years. 

Albanian national Bleda Bega was jailed for more than seven years after being found at the helm of a ship stopped by Border Force last April.

Hidden below the deck in cramped and dangerous conditions were 20 men and one woman. 

The yacht had been hired by a man with an Austrian passport from a reputable boat charter company operating at a quayside office in Brest, who claimed it would be used for a trip along the Brittany coast. 

Its co-owner, Valery Roue, spotted his vessel leaving French waters for Cornwall via a tracking device and alerted the UK authorities. 

Mr Roue explained: 'I became suspicious after my yacht left Brest. I watched its route and found her sailing across the Channel.'

Previously a 'high alert' warning was sent out by the French customs authorities to all charter boat companies along the Brittany coast, warning them to be vigilant about gangs who may try to hire, or simply steal, their yachts. 

And last week in Chichester, five men were arrested after a yacht ferrying seven illegal Albanian migrants was intercepted in the city's marina. 

Two crew members, one Albanian, 25, and a Brit, 42, were arrested on suspicion of facilitating illegal immigration to the UK.

Two Albanian men and another British national were also arrested on suspicion of being a 'shore party' to meet the boat.

Many of the voyages are now being advertised through social media platforms such as TikTok.

One advert had the caption: 'Tomorrow yacht to UK.' It was accompanied by an image of a luxury yacht alongside British and Albanian flags and a sunset.

Another post shows a picture of a less glamorous yacht on a Belgian river. It reads: 'Who is in Belgium? The yacht will be back tomorrow morning. Safe passage through the checkpoints.'   

The Home Office said it was 'bearing down on illegal small boat crossings and people smuggling' when contacted by the Mail. 

A spokesperson added: 'We've introduced an offence criminalising the online promotion of unlawful immigration services, and are working with major social media companies, alongside the NCA, to rapidly remove online adverts that promote dangerous crossings.

'This action comes as the government has delivered a record-breaking rate of disruptions to criminal smuggling activity, up by nearly 50 per cent in year ending March 2026. Since coming into power, this government has removed and deported 67,000 illegal migrants and foreign criminals - an increase of 41 per cent.

'Our Border Security Command maintains constant vigilance over attempts to enter the UK illegally, using state of the art surveillance. Anyone who seeks to smuggle people into the country will face the full force of the law.'