Smuggling gangs circulate 'how-to guide' to sneak illegal migrants into Britain

Shared on encrypted Telegram channels used by migrants camping in northern France, the recording features an Iraqi national secretly recording his own asylum interview with a Home Office caseworker.

The recording has been distributed as an example of how to successfully claim asylum in the UK.

In the audio, the man poses as a member of the Bidoon community, a stateless Arab minority group primarily found in Kuwait, falsely claiming he was imprisoned and tortured for taking part in political demonstrations demanding identity documents, the Telegraph reports.

He follows a detailed script previously circulated by people smugglers, describing his arrest, his signing of a forced confession admitting to vandalising state property and his subsequent coercion into acting as an informant for state security services.

The recording also captures the man correctly answering a series of knowledge-based questions posed by the caseworker to test the credibility of his claim, including naming Kuwait's currency, its international dialling code, the appearance of its flag and the number of governorates in the country.

The tape was distributed by Abu Hussein Al-Iraqi, the ringleader of a people smuggling gang based in Calais.

The gang leader regularly posts videos boasting that his network sends people to Britain from France every day, with footage of dinghies being launched from French beaches.

Migrants are required to send footage of themselves crossing the Channel back to him via WhatsApp or Telegram as part payment for the crossing.

Immigration officials have described the broader tactic as "nationality shopping" - migrants will change where they are from to maximise the likelihood of the approval of their asylum claim.

One Home Office insider said the practice was already spreading beyond the Bidoon scam, with growing numbers of migrants falsely claiming to have fled Iran since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East.

The insider said: "An Afghani can say he's Iranian, an Iranian can say he's Iraqi and so on and so forth.

“Then all you've got to do is Google your nationality questions."

Eritrea, where 85 per cent of asylum applications were granted last year, was cited as a particularly common false nationality, with the insider saying it was almost impossible to disprove such claims.

The number of asylum applications from Kuwait has risen more than fourfold in just two years, climbing from 276 in 2023 to a record 1,210 in 2025.

However, the proportion of those Kuwaiti applications being granted has fallen sharply, from 84 per cent last year to just over 40 per cent now, suggesting the Home Office is becoming increasingly alert to the scam.

The Bidoon are recognised by the Home Office as a stateless Arab minority and a particular social group under the UN Refugee Convention.

The group, particularly if they are undocumented, are considered at genuine risk of persecution or serious harm in Kuwait.

To succeed with such a claim, applicants must demonstrate they genuinely lack Kuwaiti nationality, hold no official documentation and face systemic denial of basic rights - conditions the Iraqi man in the recording falsely claimed to meet.

In November, the Telegraph obtained a separate leaked 25-page document, written in Arabic, providing a detailed written script for those applying to the Home Office as Bidoons despite having no genuine connection to the community.

Concerns among the migrant community that the UK Government would catch on to the scam, the smuggling gangs circulated the audio to reassure those making the crossing.

The Home Office said it was already aware of such networks, adding that a range of tools were used by caseworkers to establish the credibility of asylum cases, including examining nationality and identity through language analysis conducted by trained translators.

A spokesman said: "Our message to them is clear - the asylum system is not open to abuse."

Officials said applicants were also required to provide biometric information within 45 working days, which could be cross-referenced against records from other countries to identify those who had passed through safe nations before arriving in the UK or had provided inconsistent nationality claims.

The Home Office added it was reforming the asylum system to remove the incentives drawing illegal migrants to Britain and increase the removal of those with no right to remain.

Some 4,766 migrants have crossed the Channel so far this year, down nearly 30 per cent compared to the same point last year, though last year's overall total of 41,472 crossings was itself the second highest on record.

This comes after footage emerged of French police standing by as dozens of migrants scrambled onto Channel-bound dinghies on Dunkirk beach, weeks after Britain handed Paris £16.2 million to fund additional beach patrols.