A people-smuggling gang that charged migrants $1,800 each to be transported from the UK to France has been jailed for a total of more than 84 years.
The criminals’ operation allowed migrants, who were mainly from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, plus some from Nepal, to bypass EU border checks.
The migrants had arrived in the UK on legitimate visas, but paid to be smuggled into France so they could work in the EU illegally by avoiding stringent border checks.
They were driven from London to Kent, on England's south-east coast, where they were met by lorries whose drivers had been recruited and paid by the gang to carry the migrants across the English Channel on ferries.
But the 21-strong operation came under surveillance by the UK’s National Crime Agency, which gathered evidence of 10 runs attempting to smuggle migrants out of Britain.
These were intercepted between July 2025 and January 2026, and a total of 196 migrants were detained.
CCTV footage released by the crime agency shows migrants arriving at their rendezvous point in an industrial park to get into the lorries. Thermal imaging surveillance footage shows them crammed into one of the vehicles.
In other footage, NCA officers can be seen opening the back doors of a lorry and a van to reveal migrants packed inside.
A series of court hearings has now resulted in the jailing of gang organisers, who are from London, and drivers from Romania and North Macedonia.
The gang was led by Shuhal Ahmed, 44, who admitted people-smuggling offences and was given an eight-and-a-half-year sentence.
His trusted lieutenant Suhel Ahmed, 26, who collected the $1,800 fee from those travelling and paid taxi drivers to take them to Kent to meet the lorries, was jailed for seven years after being convicted following a trial.
Minicab driver Robiul Islam, 50, drove migrants from London to Kent to the lorries and vans planning to cross the Channel. Islam also helped to organise other drivers to do the same. He was jailed for five years after admitting his role.
Nicusor Lacatus, 54, from Romania, connected the group with HGV and van drivers willing to transport people in exchange for cash. Lacatus was jailed for six years after a trial.
NCA senior investigating officer John Turner said the sentences marked the end of a “significant investigation” into a “major people-smuggling network”.
“Our investigation has seen the entire criminal network dismantled, from the organisers right down to the drivers employed to transport migrants illegally,” he said.
“I hope it sends out a warning to those who would consider getting involved, and think there is money to be made from smuggling people in either direction across the Channel. The chances of getting caught have never been higher. It simply isn’t worth it.”
While the focus of tackling migration crime in the UK has been small boats crossing the English Channel to Britain, recent years have seen a burgeoning business in migrants wanting to go the other way.
With Britain now outside the EU, it has become a convenient staging post for migrants who want to dodge the bloc’s border checks.
These will flag an overstayer who has arrived on a tourist visa, but someone entering clandestinely in a vehicle from Britain can disappear once in France.
An Algerian-led crime gang which ran a similar operation in which migrants were packed into lorries to smuggle them from the UK to France was dismantled last year, and its senior members were convicted.
The gang also used taxis to ferry migrants from London to meeting points in Kent, where they would be loaded on to the lorries.
