A network of people smugglers referred to Vietnamese migrants as ‘pork’ and ‘chickens’ as other masterminds of the horror gang are jailed for their part in a smuggling ring
The evil human traffickers who ran a trafficking racket smuggling young women into the UK to work in brothels have been exposed.
The UK’s key player in a worldwide network of human smugglers referred to the Vietnamese migrants he was transporting as ‘pork’ and ‘chickens’. Another orchestrated an operation that saw young women smuggled into the UK and forced into prostitution.
One man who found himself in court is believed to have been involved in smuggling at least 1,900 migrants from the Balkans into France or Germany over a 50-day period, charging around 1,800 euros per person. More about these cold-hearted criminals can be read below. Hai Xuan Le, masterminded a series of crossings in August and September 2020 from his flat in Handsworth.
Phone evidence revealed that Le was the UK’s key link in a wider global network of people smugglers, which transported individuals illegally from Vietnam to the UK. Using various phone numbers, social media accounts and pseudonyms, Le arranged for people to be taken to pre-set pick up points in Europe and loaded onto HGVs in France, Belgium or the Netherlands. Once they arrived in the UK, they were transported to the West Midlands.
National Crime Agency investigators managed to prove that Le was involved in at least seven separate attempts to move migrants to the UK in just over two weeks between August 19 and September 4, 2020. He was found guilty of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration in December 2022 and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison. Romanian Gigi Ciobanica and his partner Cristina Olaru put the women to work in properties they rented from Priyantha Yakdehige in Swindon – and also took a significant cut of their earnings.
The exploited women often worked “effectively 24/7” in “poor conditions”, with customers “booked throughout the day and night”, according to police. Ciobanica, who lived in Grasmere Road, Soho, controlled the network of sex workers and ensured the transportation, housing and activity of the victims was managed to ensure he profited directly and substantially. He siphoned off the money back to Romania to build property in his name, all while dodging taxes and robbing those he exploited.
Olaru, who was his partner at the time, handled the listings for the sex workers, managed their finances and arranged their locations in houses provided by Yakdehige, who would organise and pay for flights, and then arrange accommodation for gang members to live and work in. Wiltshire Police’s Serious and Organised Crime Unit kicked off an investigation, collaborating with partner agencies and the National Crime Agency, which helped with the arrest and extradition of suspects from abroad. Ciobanica was later found guilty of conspiracy to engage in human trafficking and money laundering and was sentenced to eight years behind bars.
This pair were put behind bars for trapping Vietnamese migrants – including children – inside specially adapted sofas to smuggle them into the UK. Junior Toussaint and Andrene Paul, both hailing from near Paris, had previously worked together as delivery drivers in France. They used furniture to conceal a Vietnamese woman and three children in the back of a hire van and journeyed from Dieppe to Newhaven in the wee hours of April 2 last year.
The duo were nabbed when Border Force officers conducted a search and became suspicious upon seeing movement from inside the modified sofas, which were hidden underneath a mattress and other furniture. Images captured during the search revealed two migrants crammed inside with no means of escape without help from the smugglers. Others were concealed among various fixtures, including a chest of drawers and one migrant was discovered squashed under a settee.
Both admitted to aiding illegal migration to the UK. Toussaint received a sentence of four-and-a-half years, while Paul was put away for five years and five months. These five men landed in prison when their extensive human smuggling operation was exposed. Tarik Namik led the organised crime group, running a complex, profitable criminal business that transported migrants from Iraq and Iran into the UK in the back of lorries. Working under him were Hajar Ahmed and Soran Saliy, who would assist in coordinating the UK part of the operation.
Habil Gider would serve as a guide for some of the migrants once they arrived in the UK, while Hardi Alizada journeyed out to Europe to manage from there. Recordings discovered on Namik’s phone suggest that he may have been involved in smuggling at least 1,900 migrants from the Balkans into France or Germany over a 50-day period, charging around 1,800 euros per migrant. The group would then offer two separate methods of reaching the UK, which would come at an additional cost. In December 2022, they were collectively handed down sentences totalling 23 years and 11 months at Manchester Crown Court.
