A ringleader in a people smuggling gang responsible for moving 10,000 migrants in small boat crossings to the UK has been jailed for 11 years.
Hewa Rahimpur, 30, was sentenced by a Belgian court on Wednesday for being involved in “systematic human smuggling” by supplying boats to the crime group.
He sourced the crafts in Turkey and had them delivered to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, before they were moved to the north French coast.
The UK National Crime Agency, that led the investigation into the smuggling ring, said the gang would make between £175,000 and £260,000 in profit from each of the dangerous crossings.
At that time people were charged between £3,000 and £6,000 per crossing, with around 40 people crammed onto a small boat.
It is believed that the gang were responsible for nearly 10% of crossings to the UK in a 12 to 18 month period.
As with other smuggling gangs they openly advertised their services on social media, with officials describing the fight to get the entries removed as like playing “whack a mole”.
Deputy director of the National Crime Agency Craig Turner said: “Hewa Rahimpur’s network was, at the time of his arrest, one of the most prolific criminal groups involved in small boat crossings, playing a part in transporting thousands of migrants to the UK.
“Bringing him to justice required the cooperation of law enforcement across Europe.
“We’re going to do all we can do to disrupt and dismantle these dangerous people from smuggling individuals into the UK.”
Rahimpur, who is Kurdish and originally from Iran, came to the UK to claim asylum in 2016.
The NCA believe that because he paid to get to Britain, probably being smuggled in a lorry, Rahimpur then decided to get involved in trafficking to take some of the profits for himself.
Mr Turner said that the gang treated the smuggled migrants’ lives as a commodity.
He told journalists: “These criminal networks do not care about the safety of those that they transport.
“They are happy to put them in extremely dangerous and life threatening situations, and this is why disrupting and dismantling them remains a key priority for us.”
Rahimpur was arrested in Ilford, east London in May 2022, triggering a Europe wide investigation into the smuggling ring, with 60 boats and hundreds of life jackets seized.
More than 40 people were arrested across four countries in one of the biggest law enforcement operations of its kind.
In July last year a UK court ordered that Rahimpur should be extradited to Belgium to face criminal charges there, despite his false claims to have a partner and child in Britain.
On Wednesday he was jailed by a judge in Bruges alongside 19 other members of the gang, who received prison sentences ranging between 30 months and eight years.
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