InfoMigrants

Migrants and smugglers are resorting to increasingly extreme methods in a bid to outsmart authorities at sea. Some gangs are now resorting to using speedboats which can easily outrun patrol boats; such irregular journeys offered by criminal smuggling rings, however, can carry a hefty price tag and cost migrants' lives for multiple reasons.

While small boat and dinghy crossings remain the biggest challenge to reducing irregular migration into Europe — due to the sheer number of migrants transported this way with every journey — the use of powerful speedboats to outrun patrols in the Mediterranean Sea has been rising steadily in recent months.

Some of the speedboats being used by irregular migrants feature multiple engines which, when combined, can reach high speeds powered by up to 1,400 horsepower, according to Germany's dpa news agency.

This is the equivalent of 1,045 kilowatts (the unit used to measure power) — more than the power that the engine of a Formula 1 racing car can produce.

Their technical description is rigid-hull inflatable boats — also known commercially as RIBs.

Some of these vessels can measure up to 14 meters in length and despite their size, can reach speeds of more than 120 kilometers per hour at sea, which means that the majority of regular border control boats cannot keep up.

With modern engines and as much as 1,000 horsepower, they can easily outrun coast guard patrols. The speedboats being used by some smugglers to bring migrants to Europe are almost impossible to stop. https://t.co/Ng9kZaUI1F
— dpa news agency (@dpa_intl) November 7, 2025

Migrant smuggling on speed

One coastguard official was quoted by dpa as telling a local newspaper in Spain that there "is no legal way to stop them," since coast guard officials cannot endanger the lives of those on board these vessels — for example by shooting at them or ramming the boats.

"They are Ferraris with experts at the wheel who don't care about anything," the same official added on the condition of anonymity.

The term used by border officials to describe these boats is "phantoms" — as they disappear too quickly for authorities to catch up, or even to clock.

A spokeswoman for Frontex meanwhile highlighted that these speedboats are not only incredibly fast but also "more maneuvrable than the larger patrol boats used by national authorities, making them more difficult to detect and intercept."

Speed boat journeys on the rise across Mediterranean region

Border guards from various EU nations as well as the EU border agency Frontex have been reporting that such speedboats are now operating at increasing rates between Libya and Italy too.

Similar increases of irregular speedboat journeys have also been observed among migrants hoping to reach Spanish shores from North Africa; one such migrant run from eastern Morocco or western Algeria to the Spanish mainland or the Balearic Islands can be completed in just over two hours.

The distances between Algerian and Spanish shores can vary, making some migration journeys more dangerous than others | Credit: InfoMigrants

The Greek news platform Ekathimerini meanwhile reported a year ago that a similar trend was emerging in Greece, with speedboat journeys leading to an increase in migration arrivals from Turkey to Greece last year.

Some estimates state that about half of all migrants reaching Europe's southern shores now use such speedboats, according to dpa.

The cost of these journeys has been reported as being priced from between 6,000 and 15,000 euros — about ten times the price of journeys performed on dinghies and wooden vessels.

Many migrants simply cannot afford such expensive tickets to Europe.

Fast, furious — and dead

Although the boats are made of far superior materials than dinghies and so-called cayucos, the use of these irregular transportation means comes with its own dangers and pitfalls.

Traveling at such extreme speeds, means that anyone who falls off these vessels risks instant death, as water resistance at high speeds increases, making a collision almost inadvertently fatal.

Even at slower velocities, there are major dangers involved; since smugglers seek to spend as little time as possible in EU waters, they have been reported to slow down and simply throw migrants overboard nearer to the coast — sometimes even at gunpoint.

The gangs operating these speedboats tend to focus on a speedy turn around time after dropping migrants off at their destination as well as during their pick-up; this also involves dangers, as migrants are often forced to wade into the sea to hop on to these speedboats.

This is partly also done to avoid the speedboats from getting stuck in shallow water or having sand and sea sediment enter and damage their engines.

Another danger lies in the fact that in order to overwhelm border guards at sea, smugglers often deploy several boats at the same time, increasing the risk of collisions with other boats or even each other.

Sex and drugs and horse power

Perhaps most alarmingly, the biggest danger hidden in these irregular journeys is the fact that some smugglers are willing to allow their prices to be haggled down in exchange for certain services and favors from the migrants; this can involve all manner of exploitation, including indentured labor, coerced sexual acts or trafficking into prostitution upon reaching their European destination.

The most worrying trend for authorities however is when smugglers offer such "discounts" to some of their desperate customers — in exchange for doubling as drug mules.

The migrants are reportedly given drugs to take with them to Europe, including by ingesting them as small packets designed to later to be retrieved through defecation.

These packets will lead to an almost immediate — yet agonizing — death if they open up while they’re still journeying through the gastric tract; this danger is hardly ever communicated to those who are keen to do almost anything to make it to Europe.

According to the transnational crime research institute Global Initiative, the incidence of migrants moonlighting as drug mules has been increasing, especially on the western Mediterranean route from Morocco and Algeria to Spain in the past two years.

Moroccan human rights expert Hussein Bakkar al-Sabai told dpa that the operators of such speedboats typically "prefer to transport migrants rather than drugs because they earn higher profits."

In August 2024, Ekathimerini quoted a Greek coastguard official making a similar remark saying that authorities were "no longer dealing with cheap inflatable dinghies with small motors but boats that were used in the past by drug and contraband cigarette trafficking rings."

However, while both illegal trades may be lucrative, the combination of them into a single business model appears to be the most promising way for criminal gangs to stuff their pockets.

Tourism in danger

Tourists in beach resorts in southern Europe have filmed such daring migrant smuggling stunts involving the use of speedboats multiple times this year.

So far, there have been no major clashes between those enjoying their holidays and criminals using migrants and illegal drugs as their cargo to make a quick buck.

However, there are worries that as more and more holidaymakers observe these events from a distance and document them on their smartphones — which authorities can use as evidence — tourists might also increasingly fall into the crosshairs of these criminal gangs, who usually carry heavy weapons with them during their journeys.

with dpa