Hundreds of illegal migrants were regularly dispatched to Britain from France as part of a discounted 'bulk service' provided by people smugglers, it emerged today.
The £7000-a-head scam saw foreigners transported to Channel ports like Calais and Cherbourg, where they were encouraged to jump aboard lorries heading for England on masse.
The vast numbers of migrants playing cat-and-mouse with the police caused widespread confusion, meaning hundreds could get to the UK, where they claimed asylum or disappeared into the black economy.
French police arrest illegal immigrants at the port town of Cherbourg.
French police arrest illegal immigrants at the port town of Cherbourg. New details about how the people-trafficking system works have emerged today
Others paid up to £14,000 for a 'bespoke service' which involved traveling with false papers inside a camper van driven by one of the smugglers. In this case swift entry to Britain was all but guaranteed.
Details of the ease with which the smugglers regularly evaded British customs and security checks emerged on the first day of a Paris trial which saw 28 smugglers from the so-called 'Baghdad Ring' go on trial at the city's Criminal Correctional Court.
All of the defendants, who are aged from 22 to 49 and from countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, face up to 10 years in prison for criminal conspiracy and working as an organised gang 'to facilitate illegal entry and residency in France'.
Those transported came from northern Iraq, central Asia, the Indian sub continent, and China.
Their long journeys towards the UK often saw them travel through European countries like Italy and Greece where 'technically' they should have been returned if arrested.
Instead investigating judges Corinne Goetzmann and Patrick Gachon revealed how the men were able 'to saturate' port towns like Calais with migrants, mainly because none were ever held in custody by the police.
'Depending on their final destination - the United Kingdom or Ireland for one of the branches of the enterprise, and Scandanavian countries for the other, they were transported by road, by train and by boat to the country of their choice' said Judge Gachon.
He said Calais and Cherbourg were particularly popular with the smugglers because of their close proximity to the south coast of England, with at least 1000 migrants paying for the 'bulk service' in between 2007 and mid 2008 alone.
If migrants were initially caught trying to leap aboard lorries specially selected by the smugglers, French police simply let them free so that they could try again later.
'The two services were distinct,' said another French judicial source involved in the case.
'The bulk service was the cheapest, while the more costly one involved migrants being driven over by a paid associate of the gang. This service was pretty much guaranteed.'
Last June police from 10 European countries arrested 105 people as part of the operation to dismantle the Baghdad Ring, making it the biggest joint operation against illegal immigration staged by the European Union.
France's immigration minister Eric Besson has pledged to make ports like Calais 'watertight' to illegal migrants, although there are currently some 1500 people sleeping rough in the area as they try to get to Britain.
The Paris trial is set to run until March 26, with similar ones being held in Belgium, Germany and Holland. The case continues.