Human smuggling

MI6 spies 'smuggled a defecting Iranian nuclear scientist into the UK on a dinghy by using Channel migrant crisis as cover'

British spies smuggled an Iranian nuclear scientist to the UK across the English Channel on a dinghy after using the migrant crisis as cover,  it has been claimed.

The 47-year-old man is thought to have hidden among other Iranians on an inflatable boat when making the crossing.

The scientist travelled by 3,000 miles by land to the French coast near Calais after he was reportedly smuggled out of his homeland and into neighbouring Turkey by the Israeli secret service Mossad. 

The Iranian scientist, who has information about Iran's nuclear programme and reportedly helped plan the 2012 assassination of Tehran's top nuclear expert Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, arrived in Lydd, Kent, with 12 other migrants  on New Year's Eve.  

It is thought that MI6, which was involved in a joint operation with Mossad and America's CIA, decided on the unusual method of 'extraction' because they did not want Tehran to find out about British involvement because Britain is still a signatory to a nuclear deal with Iran.

The plot, which was hatched in October, was complicated by President Donald Trump ending US support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is aimed at preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons via an inspection regime and suspension of sanctions.