diplomatic contact and so we do have diplomatic contact, as you would expect. over 13,000 migrants have been removed from the uk since labour took power — but the government admits the rate of illegal channel crossings is still too high. and thousands gather for mass in corsica, as pope francis visits the island for the first time. now on bbc news — undercover people smugglers. the face of a migrant in the middle of the channel trying to reach safety in the uk. behind every migrant, there are people smugglers.

camera shutter clicks men like these. camera shutter clicks they were part of a vast criminal network, all from a carwash in south wales. these are significant players in the people smuggling industry. their network extended to this city in iraq and we go there to investigate the people who trade in desperation and misery. gangs are making millions. are you charging people up to $5,000 in the back of a truck? so, why can't the smugglers be stopped?

by planes, boats and automobiles... one, two, three. ..migrants trying to reach the uk and other countries in western europe. thank you so, so much. thank you, bro. nice to meet you. all of these migrants were being smuggled by two men from south wales in the uk — ali khdir and dilshad shamo. they ran a carwash in caerphilly. there's no suggestion that anyone else working there was involved in people smuggling. but following a tip—off, the two men were investigated by the national crime agency for six months. this is a typical carwash

that you see in every city and town where you come in, have your car hand—washed by a number of people. they were a very busy business and that was their source of income on a semi—legitimate, outward—looking business. however, it appears that they were up to more thanjust car washing. shamo and khdir, who both had uk citizenship, were kept under surveillance and secretly recorded. they spent an extensive amount of time on their phones. that allowed us to observe them, record a number of conversations, say, over a period of six months.

as the nca investigation continued, the full extent of their role in smuggling migrants became apparent. they were on tiktok and telegram, openly stating, "if you want to travel somewhere, come and see this person and this is their phone number" — effectively like a travel agent. they would be speaking to people to explain to, like, drop off at this point and these coordinates in that country, tell them to walk x amount of kilometres, across border, breaking fences, through woods, etc, etc. get to that point, someone will ring you. to think that how many people they've potentially facilitated across europe is staggering. the nca seized a huge number of messages and videos with migrants charting their progress as they travelled from the middle east to europe...

..even reviewing the pair's services for other migrants. there was a number of videos that we identified where they would be effectively doing a promotional video to say how wonderful shamo and khdir were and a great service they provided. shamo and khdir posted glossy ads like this one on social media, boasting about their successful journeys, which they described as �*wrestling games,�* and even

providing migrants with a packing list to take, like extra clothing, honey and lemons. most of the migrants smuggled by shamo and khdir came from the middle east — iran, iraq and syria. from there, they would come via various routes, all looking for a better life in western europe — and many are believed to have come to the uk. the organised crime gang had contacts throughout europe and the middle east to help run their operations. it's a fairly substantial network we've identified. there were a number of different countries across europe — in turkey, germany, italy, moldova, i believe, belarus. a person would come in there to say, "i want to get "to the uk," as an example. they would reach out to them to say, "we have people "interested in travelling

across to somewhere, some destination," and then, shamo and khdir�*s responsibility was for the transportation from point a to point z. we know that these people smugglers had contacts in northern iraq, so i've come to erbil in the kurdistan region of the country to try to find out more about these kind of criminal networks. this ancient city is proudly and distinctly kurdish. but it harbours a dark reality — this region is now an important base for people smugglers. we've enlisted the help of a local man to find out more about this shady but hugely profitable industry. we've agreed to protect his identity. he has extensive experience in investigating this type

of criminality and it doesn't take him long to make contact with a man on tiktok. he advertises openly as a people smuggler based in iraqi kurdistan. he quickly tells our undercover reporter, who we're calling aram, to talk to him on whatsapp, where messages are encrypted. aram tells him he's living in france and wants to get to the uk in a lorry. he's quoted £4,500 for the trip, and he's promised that he'll get a good service. aram wants to know where he needs to take his money and asks if he can pay in the uk. the people smuggler tells aram to pay the money in erbil. translation: send someone to that agency in erbil - - it's a transfer agency. 0k, brother?

they finally agree a price of $5,000 to cross from france to england in a lorry. 0ur undercover reporter didn't go through with this, but all too often, these kind of deals can end in tragedy. farhad's eldest son safa wanted to be smuggled across the channel. this is him and maybe about 50, 60 people on a boat. like, 63. safa had been seeking asylum in germany but that was eventually rejected, and he was making his way

to the uk — first by train... ..and then by dinghy. he'd paid people smugglers to travel from dunkirk, in france, to england, when he sent these videos, filmed in the channel, to his family. when did you last see or hearfrom your son?

just minutes after this video was sent, the dinghy was hit by a large wave. we've contacted the authorities in the uk and france

but they have no record of safa, dead or alive. tragedies in the channel are all too common. so far this year, at least 60 people have died attempting to reach the shores of the uk. in caerphilly, the carwash smugglers khdir and shamo offered migrants a range of transport methods to get them from the middle east to western europe. there was three tiers of service — a platinum, silver and a bronze, for want of a better phrase. one would be a fake passport, a false identification by a premium service. so there, you're looking at potentially between £10,000 and £25,000 uk money, where there was less risk to you but, obviously, the price of that was considerably higher. secondly, then, that would be by vessel — second safest option, around about the £8,000 to £10,000 mark, either in the back of a container onboard a hgv or sometimes,

for males only, pretending to be part of the crew of a ship. and then, obviously the most risky with the least price — possibly between £3,000 and £5,000 — would be a mass hgv transportation, being dropped off by taxi. five, six, seven, eight. thank you. thank you so, so much. ciao. camera shutter clicks shamo and khdir had been giving migrants instructions on telegram. the company said it's taking action to combat misuse on its platform. camera shutter clicks so, we know the smugglers from caerphilly could access fake documents and we wanted to find out for ourselves how easy that would be.

back in iraq, our undercover reporter has found a man on tiktok who says he can provide fake passports for migrants. he calls himself bawar and claims to be from cardiff. he says he buys genuine passports from drug addicts and he says he sometimes steals the details from dead people. notification tone dings translation: my brother, we have by plane from - france to britain — for yourself only. our undercover reporter says he has a relative who wants to fly to the uk on a false passport. we guarantee no stoppage orfingerprinting. translation: 0k, my brother. very good. this is what i am looking for. if you could tell me the price, i'll be grateful. my brother, the amount is $8,000 and you can easily deposit the amount in any transfer office you want. when you leave the airport

in the uk, you release the money to us. to finalise the deal, he tells our undercover reporter he has to deposit the money using a system called hawala banking. inside this building is a real thriving money market. huge amounts of dollars and other currencies are exchanged. what's also going on is hawala banking — a traditional system based almost entirely around trust. hundreds of thousands of dollars�* worth of deals are made and there are few electronic or paper trails — features why hawala banking is often preferred by people smugglers. there�*s nothing to suggest that any of these traders are actually involved in people smuggling — it�*s a system found throughout the middle east and many other parts of the world — but it can be

open to exploitation, and we�*ve been told of someone who�*ll do business with us. our undercoverjournalist is on his way to one hawala to discuss payment for a counterfeit passport which, he�*s been told, can get him into the uk no questions asked. the man who�*s organised this says he�*s based in cardiff. he�*s pretending to be the brother of a migrant who wants to travel from france by plane to the uk on a false passport.

our undercover reporter didn�*t go through with the deal. but what�*s obvious to me is just how straightforward it is to find and do business with people smugglers and others involved in their criminality. hawala banking has many legitimate uses, but it�*s also key to enabling the trade in people smuggling — and it doesn�*t only happen overseas.

there are a number of known hawalas in the uk, currently some of which are regulated, but there�*s an awful lot of people that aren�*t regulated and are working within a criminal network within the uk. and it�*s this system that shamo and khdir were exploiting — from the middle east, across europe and in south wales. concerns about the hawala banking system have reached the united nations, but it does acknowledge the system works well for millions. basically, you have a hawala broker based in one country, somebody goes to this broker, pays some cash that they want to transfer to somebody in a different country. they receive a code from that hawala broker and then,

the person who�*s receiving the money in another country goes to their hawala broker with that code and can withdraw the money. now, the difference, of course, is that it is anonymous. and that is why it�*s so popular with criminals, including people smugglers. are we doing enough at the minute to stop the exploitation of hawala banking by smugglers? i think that definitely not enough is being done. what we would call for right now is really refocusing efforts to combat migrant smuggling on those financial flows, on those financial aspects, rather than simply targeting smuggled migrants who arrive in a certain country. what we need to understand is is where is the real money going behind that? have you been able to recover any assets or any gains they�*ve made through

this operation? unfortunately, there was actually minimal assets that we could actually try to recover in the uk, purely because of this hawala system. it didn�*t allow us to sort of follow any financial footprint. they could have made tens, hundreds of thousands, if not millions. camera shutter clicks two weeks into their trial, shamo and khdir changed their pleas, admitting five charges relating to people smuggling. they�*ll be sentenced at a later date. camera shutter clicks and what about the men we spoke to when we were in iraq who were involved in people smuggling? there was the man from cardiff who offered our undercover reporter a fake passport and a flight to the uk. i want to know what he has to say for himself. so, we�*re going to give

this guy a call now. ringing tone hello? yeah, hello? hello? yeah, my name�*s wyre davis. i�*m ringing from the bbc in the uk. first of all, we�*re recording this call. look, we�*ve got some evidence that suggests you�*re offering to sell fake passports to migrants and also get them a flight to the uk. now, all of that�*s illegal. what have you got to say about that? hello? ok, so he�*s hung up on us. let�*s now try and contact our would—be people smuggler and see what he�*s got to say. ringing tone hello? hi. my name is wyre davis. i�*m ringing from the bbc in the uk. we�*re recording this call. now, we�*ve got some evidence to suggest that you offered to illegally smuggle a migrant from france to the uk in the back of a truck.

are you charging people up to $5,000 to go from france to the uk in the back of a truck? do you admit doing that? again, let me be clear — do you deny offering to help somebody get to the uk illegally for $5,000? well, there we are — in effect, he denies the allegations that we�*ve put to him. i wonder what the authorities make of the evidence we�*ve gathered. our undercover reporter found both of these men on tiktok. the company told us it has zero tolerance for content that promotes human smuggling

and will remove accounts. it also says it�*s working closely with the nca to identify and combat organised immigration crime. part of those crime groups are the hawala bankers, like the one who was willing to take our undercover reporter�*s money in iraq. when we contacted him, he denied offering to take money to help our undercover reporter travel by plane to the uk on a false passport. all hawalas in the uk are meant to be registered, but what are the authorities doing to combat those who act illegally? the home office told us it would stop at nothing to dismantle people smuggling gangs, and it said the nca is working to disrupt those gangs who use hawalas

to launder money. tens of thousands of migrants continue to illegally enter the uk every year. shamo and khdir are believed to have been responsible for many of those. thank you so, so much. so, overall, how many people do you think they may have facilitated or brought over? our numbers, from our — from our audio recordings, are potentially 100 people a week — and this is potentially going on for a couple of years. 100 people a week for a couple of years? potentially. that could mean that shamo and khdir were responsible for smuggling as many as 10,000 migrants. where were those

migrants ending up? that�*s the million—dollar question. we suspect a significant number in the uk. it�*s been very, very hard for us to identify people because they would change identity. we�*re hoping that we�*ve dismantled, disrupted a significant part of that venture, but there�*s no doubt that someone else will take over what they did and do something similar, because it�*s such a fruitful business model. one migrant trying to reach the uk was 24—year—old safa. his whereabouts are still unknown. politicians have been determined to stop the boats

and now, the mantra is "smash the gangs". and while there have been some wins, it�*s clear to me there�*s a long way to go to stop the smugglers. hello there. much of the country today had a fine and largely dry one, and it was milder than it was yesterday, despite the lack of sunshine.

now this mild theme is here to stay, certainly for the first half of this upcoming week, but it will be dominated by low pressure, so it will be wet and windy at times, and then all areas will be turning colder from thursday onwards, with an increasing chance of wintry showers on hills in the north. at the moment though, we�*re in this wedge of milder air, rather cloudy skies because of a lot of moisture there. and on this boundary between the mild and colder air across northern scotland, we�*ve got a weather front which is going to bring persistent rain, which will drive into the western highlands, rainfall totals really mounting up even as we head into monday as well. elsewhere, apart from some drizzle across western hills, it will be mostly dry, variable cloud and a mild night to come. so it starts mild on monday for all areas. we�*ve got that rain still piling into the north and west of scotland, particularly the north—west highlands. elsewhere, variable cloud, some sunshine, a bit of drizzle i think, across western hills, but mild again with temperatures into 10 to 13 celsius. but we�*ve got some concerns of the amount of rain just falling across the north—west highlands by the end

of monday into early tuesday. some of the worst affected areas could be up to 150mm, so that could cause some localised flooding and some travel disruption. but as we move into tuesday, that weather front eventually starts to shift northwards as we start to pick up a southerly wind thanks to a renewed area of low pressure. and again it will be a mild start to tuesday. here it is, a new area of low pressure, more isobars on the charts. this one�*s a bit more powerful than we�*ve had over the weekend, so it looks like it�*ll be windier with gales around irish sea coasts. outbreaks of rain for northern ireland and into western scotland again, areas that really don�*t need any more rain. but i think the midlands eastwards are large parts of eastern england should stay dry all day on tuesday, but rather cloudy with limited sunshine. mild double figure values for most, wet, windy weather with gales spreads across the country during tuesday night. another area of low pressure will arrive later on wednesday, but we�*re in between the weather systems for wednesday, so we should see quite a bit of dry weather across the northern half of the country with some sunshine. a few showers across western scotland and then we�*ll start

to see wet and windy weather pushing up from the south across england, wales into northern ireland. given some sunshine we could be up to 15 degrees across eastern england. it does turn colder for the end of the week. wintry showers across northern hills. a bit of sunshine in the south. live from london, this is bbc news. hundreds of people are feared dead after a cyclone hit the french indian ocean territory of mayotte. £50 million for syria — britain�*s foreign secretary pledges money to help vulnerable people and refugees, and confirms the uk is in contact with the country�*s rebel leaders. hts remains a proscribed organisation, but we can have diplomatic contact and so we do have diplomatic contact, as you would expect.

over 13,000 migrants have been removed from the uk since labour took power — but the government admits the rate of illegal channel crossings is still too high. and thousands gather for mass in corsica, as pope francis visits the island for the first time. hello and welcome, i�*m samantha simmonds. it�*s feared that thousands of people may have been killed by cyclone chido in the french archipelago of mayotte in the indian ocean. a local official has been quoted as saying that the death toll may be in the thousands. residents have spoken of apocalyptic scenes in mayotte. the mayor of the capital, mamoudzou, said nothing had been spared. houses have been destroyed, along with schools and the hospital. french emergency personnel are now on mayotte to assist and the first aid flight has arrived.

chido has now