British spies used the English Channel crossing migrant crisis as an elaborate cover to smuggle an Iranian spy into the UK, according to reports.
It is claimed they spirited the Iranian nuclear technician across the Channel to safety in the UK aboard a dinghy filled with illegal Iranian immigrants.
Reports suggest the 47-year-old, who allegedly holds information about Iran’s nuclear programme, was smuggled into Kent by MI6 aboard the inflatable.
The Sunday Express published the claims from a source who says the clandestine expedition took place on New Year’s Eve in a joint operation involving MI6, the CIA and Israeli spy agency Mossad.
The newspaper reported sources’ details of the incredible trek, said to involve bundling the fleeing technician along a 3,000-mile journey across Europe, before the final dangerous leg across the Channel with illegal Iranian immigrants.
A source claimed a Border Force clipper was placed on standby while the inflatable which was originally destined for Dover sailed off course only to land about 30 miles away in Lydd.
Agents were able to pick him up when motorists told police 12 migrants were on the beach. The paper reported the man was then taken to a safe house and questioned by UK and US agents, before being flown to America.
A source also claimed the technician’s disappearance was noted quickly and spies were told a special unit of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been dispatched to track him down.
The newspaper described the man as a longtime Israeli assets said to have helped plan the 2012 assassination of nuclear scientist and Iranian Natanz uranium enrichment facility director Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan.
Roshan was killed by a magnetic bomb attached to his car in Tehran in a blast that also killed his driver.
The Express reported Mossad got the technician out of Iran, and the CIA and MI6 arranged him to be transported to the UK in hopes he could provide information about the country’s nuclear programme.
The international spy agencies were reportedly looking for information about two nuclear plants, including Natanz, which Tehran has admitted are capable of making warheads as well as generating power.