18 October 2023 , 12:10
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A UK-based gang leader has been convicted of smuggling 10,000 people across Channel to Britain.
Hewa Rahimpur was sentenced to 11 years in prison and fined €80,000 (£70,000) at a court in Bruges, Belgium, on Wednesday morning. He was convicted in one of the biggest people-smuggling trials in Europe - with 20 out of 21 defendants found guilty.
Rahimpur, who is Iranian but claimed asylum in the UK in 2016 after arriving by lorry, was a “key player” in a gang whose members spanned Europe and made “significant money” by exploiting vulnerable individuals, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. The 30-year-old was involved in sourcing boats across Europe and sent other members to take them to northern France so migrants could be transported.
A search being carried out at a location in the north-western city of Osnabruck, Germany, as part of Operation Punjum (PA)Craig Turner, the NCA’s deputy director, said: “We estimate his network was involved in the smuggling of around 10,000 people into the United Kingdom and at one point this may have been 10% of all crossings across the Channel. Rahimpur and his gang were pretty indiscriminate. They didn’t care who they sold their seats to. It was a money-making exercise, a business model - the whole idea of it was to make as much money as possible. They did not care in relation to the quality of the boats, they did not care in relation to the quality of the lifejackets. All they wanted to do was put individuals - vulnerable or not - into a boat to cross the channel in order to make money.”
Hewa Rahimpur, being detained in an NCA operation in Wanstead Park, east London. (PA)The group used social media platforms including Facebook to advertise and are understood to have charged £6,000 per person for a space in the vessels. Rahimpur - who also ran a small retail business in Ilford, east London - is understood to have made profits of between £175,000 and £260,000 per crossing. Despite this he did not have a “lavish lifestyle” in the UK, investigators said - as money was “moved” around the criminal network. He was arrested in Wanstead Park May 2022 after a police operation that involved officers in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as the UK's National Crime Agency.
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The probe uncovered evidence of a sprawling criminal network that imported parts and lifesaving equipment from as far as Turkey and China. Sixty boats and hundreds of life jackets were seized as part of the investigation.
A court sketch of Hewa Rahimpur, appearing in the dock at Westminster Magistrates' Court, central London (PA)Mr Turner added: “Bringing him to justice required the cooperation of law enforcement across Europe and demonstrates one of the main strengths of the National Crime Agency and that we’re going to do all we can do to disrupt and dismantle these dangerous people from smuggling individuals into the UK.”
The agency has 90 ongoing operations into “high-level organised immigration crime”, relating to small boats and HGV lorries. Mr Turner described the use of social media to advertise illegal passage to the UK as a “significant issue. He said: “It’s like playing whack-a-mole - once we’ve taken one down, another one comes up to the floor.”