Yacht with Seven Albanian Nationals Stopped at Chichester Marina, Five Men Arrested on Immigration Offences

National Crime Agency and Border Force officers stopped a yacht carrying seven Albanian nationals nearly five nautical miles inland at Chichester Marina, West Sussex. Two crew members, a British national aged 42 and another aged 25, were arrested on suspicion of facilitating illegal immigration.

Three additional suspects, a British national aged 38 and two Albanians aged 24 and 32, were arrested on suspicion of people smuggling offences as a suspected shore party.

The seven Albanian nationals were taken to immigration detention. GB News reported that Home Office intelligence estimates there are up to 9,000 locations where boats could be landed by gangs seeking to bring migrants, drugs, and other contraband into the country. Villages as far inland as 35 miles have been instructed to watch out for illegal migrant boats.

Accounts appearing to be run by people smugglers have advertised yacht trips to the UK on TikTok. " Lucy Moreton of the Immigration Services Union said: "We know it is happening, but we do not know the extent. " She added that migrants arriving by yacht are often trying to avoid detection because they already have deportation orders, and that attention is frequently diverted to small boats, leaving insufficient Border Force resources for yacht smuggling.

He noted that the Border Force has directed most resources toward small-boat crossings and that most asylum seekers do not arrive by yacht, citing costs of roughly £15,000 per place compared with £1,000 to £2,000 for small-boat journeys. He added that many yacht arrivals do not plan to claim asylum.

A Home Office spokesman said the government has delivered a record-breaking rate of disruptions to criminal smuggling activity, up nearly 50 per cent in the year ending March 2026.

The spokesman also stated that since coming into power the government has removed and deported 67,000 illegal migrants and foreign criminals, an increase of 41 per cent. The spokesman said the Border Security Command maintains constant vigilance using state-of-the-art surveillance and that anyone who seeks to smuggle people into the country will face the full force of the law.

The spokesman added that an offence criminalising the online promotion of unlawful immigration services has been introduced and that officials are working with social media companies and the National Crime Agency to remove such adverts.