A luxury yacht named Tacoma sailed out of a smart French marina in April, supposedly for a jaunt along the Brittany coast.

The sleek blue and white vessel worth £70,000 had been hired by man with an Austrian passport from a reputable boat charter company operating at a quayside office in Brest. 

'The renter's credentials were checked by us,' Valery Roue, co-owner of the Eridan charter company, told the Mail this week.

'His passport, his identity details, his maritime certificate. Everything seemed in order. This Austrian hired the yacht for a two-week local sailing holiday with friends. Or that is what he told us.'

What actually happened next to the six-berth Tacoma is a shocking tale that exposes how pleasure yachts hired in France are being stolen by criminal gangs to bring illegal migrants here.

Today, the 'Austrian' who hired the vessel has disappeared. He is being hunted by British and French police across Europe and the Balkans because one of the documents he used for the yacht hire shows he originally hails from North Macedonia.

Far from pottering along the Brittany coast, the yacht was soon spotted by Monsieur Roue, using a vessel tracking device, leaving French waters to head for Cornwall.

He alerted the UK Border Force who pounced on the yacht as it reached the mouth of the Helford River, near Falmouth, on Sunday, April 13.

Hiding inside the cabin were 17 Albanian migrants, including one woman, hoping to slip illegally into Britain. They are thought to have been picked up by the Tacoma from a secret location along the Brittany coast soon after the yacht sailed from Brest with three men, including a skipper, on board.

Roue explained: 'I became suspicious after my yacht left Brest. I watched its route and found her sailing across the Channel. Border Force stopped it at Newquay but the "Austrian" was not there.'

This week, we found the Tacoma back in Brest, a couple of hundred yards from Roue's office. After 52 days impounded in Cornwall by Border Force, she was sailed back to France by a crew from the charter company a few days ago.

The incident has led British and French immigration authorities to sound the alarm over French charter yachts being targeted to bring migrants into the UK.

A 'high alert' has been sent out by the French customs authority to all charter boat companies along the Brittany coast, warning them to be vigilant about migrant- smuggling gangs who may try to hire, or simply steal, their yachts. 

Meanwhile, British Border Force is using extra surveillance to check pleasure craft arriving at UK ports, private marinas and remote inlets from France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The force is responsible for securing the 11,000 miles of British coastline. 'We patrol 24/7, carrying out proactive, as well as reactive, operations,' Charlie Eastaugh, its director of maritime, told the BBC after the Tacoma incident.

But he added that there are hundreds of harbours and marinas in the UK, and it would not be a reasonable expectation to have a 'fixed presence' in all of them.

A recent BBC exposé about a British ex-soldier and yachtsman known by the pseudonym of Nick, who smuggled hundreds of clandestine passengers – many Albanian and Vietnamese – into private marinas at seaside towns across south-east England, had also identified 'vulnerabilities' in the system, said Mr Eastaugh.

A Home Office statement about the Tacoma migrants explained: 'This case shows that while small-boat Channel crossings remain under close scrutiny, people- smuggling gangs are adapting their methods, using pleasure craft to try to evade detection.'

The Mail has discovered that this vessel is not the only Brittany yacht used for migrant journeys this spring. On May 8, according to authorities, a second vessel hired at a marina 14 miles from the picturesque French port of La Trinite-sur-Mer was found abandoned near Falmouth, Cornwall.

The yacht was 'very similar in design and size to the Tacoma' and it is suspected that illegals on board simply jumped off on arrival and disappeared into the UK.

Our French sources told us those on this second vessel are also likely to have been from Albania, a country whose citizens now face deportation from the UK if they arrive on smugglers' small boats across the Channel.

'They are prepared to pay for a yacht crossing because they do not want to be caught up in the lengthy British asylum system or deported. Most pay huge prices to enter Britain secretly by sea to work on the black market or survive by crime,' they added.

The Albanian passengers on the Tacoma have been interviewed by police from the National Crime Agency – Britain's FBI – by immigration authorities and Border Force officers.

They are likely to face deportation. Meanwhile, an investigation is under way into the crew who sailed the boat to Britain.

Two of them are Albanian men in their 30s who have been named publicly and pleaded guilty in April at Bodmin magistrates' court to breaching previous UK deportation orders. They are due to be sentenced in the near future.

As for the missing 'Austrian' mastermind of the Tacoma operation (which stood to reap £250,000 from the migrants on board), he may never be found.

The passport and maritime certificate he handed over to Mr Roue's charter boat company could have been faked or stolen.

'They looked genuine, but we just don't know,' Mr Roue said. 'Although I was the person who alerted your British Border Force, it has charged us for every day the Tacoma was impounded in Cornwall during a police investigation.

'When we sailed the yacht back, she was in good order considering how many Albanian migrants were found below deck on a sea journey that takes at least 20 hours.'

His company has been operating boat charters for nearly 40 years. 'This is the first time that we have had a yacht taken by gangsters.

'Now we worry it will not be the last because so many migrants want to reach Britain.'