A pair of people smugglers who arranged for Vietnamese migrants to be smuggled into the UK hidden inside lorries have been sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court.
A man aged 36, from Reading, was sentenced to eight years in prison, while a 58-year-old from London, received a two-year sentence suspended for two years. Both were convicted of human smuggling and money laundering offences following an investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
The organized crime network concealed migrants inside heavy goods vehicles travelling from Europe via ferries or the Channel Tunnel. Once in the UK, the migrants were picked up near the south coast by car and moved to safe houses across the country to evade Border Force detection.
Between August and September 2020, the 36-year-old acted as an operational coordinator, matching migrants with lorry slots and organizing safe houses. The 58-year-old acted as a driver, collecting migrants and transporting illicit cash. A total of 22 migrants were successfully smuggled into the UK during this three-week period, though investigators suspect the broader operation was far larger.
The pair used encrypted messaging apps and coded slang to hide their activities, referring to migrants as “pork” or “things”, police as “dogs”, and refrigerated trucks as “fridges”.
Police stopped the 36-year-old on the M25 in September 2020, seizing over £56,000 in cash intended to pay co-conspirators for a incoming lorry load of migrants. The 58-year-old was stopped the following day in Birmingham with three Vietnamese migrants in his car, and was later re-arrested by NCA officers in June 2022.
NCA Branch Commander Sara-Jayne Moore said the men treated human life with “utter contempt” solely for financial gain, adding that the agency continues to target organized immigration crime networks operating in the UK and internationally.