A Turkish businessman who supplied thousands of boats and engines to people smugglers operating in the English Channel has been jailed for 11 years.
Adem Savas, 45, made “millions” charging around £4,000 ($5,400) for each boat, with some likely to have been involved in the deaths of migrants, says the UK’s National Crime Agency.
Savas began supplying boats in 2019 to people-smuggling networks in Belgium and France and the NCA estimated he supplied equipment used in thousands of small boat crossings to the UK.
Investigators believe that in 2023, Savas supplied equipment used in around half of all Channel crossings, making him a key figure in the European people-smuggling hierarchy. Almost 30,000 migrants made the perilous crossing that year.
Savas used the cover of being a legitimate supplier of nautical equipment, but at one point, he topped the NCA’s list of global high-value targets. The agency worked with Dutch and Belgian law enforcement to track his movements.
He was arrested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in 2024 after arriving in the Netherlands to attend a boat industry trade event.
Savas was then extradited to Belgium and at a court in Bruges in December admitted offences of people smuggling and being a member of an organised crime group.
“Adem Savas was without doubt the most significant supplier of boats and engines to people-smuggling gangs involved in organising deadly crossings in the Channel, the head of a criminal network stretching across Europe to the beaches of northern France and across into the UK,” said NCA director general of operations Rob Jones.
“Boats and engines supplied by Savas were likely involved in numerous fatal events in the Channel – he made money from each of those.”
Savas was initially identified by the NCA following an investigation into Kurdish crime boss Hewa Rahimpur, who was jailed for 13 years at the same court in Bruges.
Analysis of phones and devices seized following Rahimpur’s arrest revealed that Savas was his key supplier, and the two were in regular contact.
One exchange of messages between Savas and Rahimpur in November 2021 followed the deaths of 27 migrants, when their boat sank in the Channel.
Rahimpur sent Savas five images of a white inflatable boat, along with a screen grab from a news website showing how an identical boat had been used in the fatal crossing.
He was the main importer of cheap Parsun-branded outboard engines sourced from China − the type most frequently used by gangs operating small boats in the Channel.
Savas used a Dutch haulage company to move the boats and engines he sourced from Turkey into Bulgaria, and then across Europe to Germany, where they would be stored before being used in the Channel.
Videos showed boxes of boats, controlled by Savas’s associates, piled high in a warehouse, while investigators also recovered a price list for boats, engines and life jackets, together with Dutch transport costs.
Mr Jones said Savas “pretended to run a legitimate maritime supply company, but in reality he knew exactly how the equipment he provided would be used” and “knew exactly how unsuitable it was for long sea crossings”.
The court also fined Savas €400,000 ($468,000). Three co-defendants were given sentences totalling 38 years.
A total of 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK in 2025 after crossing the English Channel – the second-highest annual figure on record.
The overall number of arrivals last year finished nine per cent below the all-time high of 45,774 in 2022.
The UK government has announced new measures to seize mobile phones and SIM cards from would-be asylum seekers without the need to arrest them from Monday, as part of efforts to tackle Channel crossings and people smugglers.
