An illegal smuggling gang sent more migrants from the UK back to France than Labour has managed to under its one in, one out scheme, a court has been told.
Algerian Uber Eats driver Madjid Belabes, 53, ran an army of cabbies taking the migrants from London to lay-bys and service stations in Kent, before being herded into the back of trucks and driven to France.
Father-of-four Belabes charged £1,200 for each person and made at least £287,000 after arranging 26 transportations in just ten months between December 2022 and September 2023.
He admitted conspiring to facilitate the illegal entry of a person into an EU country and was jailed for ten years and nine months at Kingston Crown Court.
His operation saw more migrants sent back to France from the UK than Keir Starmer’s return deal with French president Emmanuel Macron, announced in July, has been able to achieve.
Malachy Packenham, prosecuting, described Belabes as ‘the main defendant who organised this conspiracy’.
Samir Zerguine, 52, Mourad Bouchlaghem, 44, Mohamed Mabrouk, 44, Mohamed Issaoun, 49, all admitted taking part in the activities of an organised crime group, while a sixth Algerian, Said Bouazza, 55, was convicted by a jury.
They were all arrested during an ongoing National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation into migrant smuggling from the UK to France.
The agency said the arrests were made after more than 200 North African migrants, including children, were discovered in lorry trailers travelling from the UK to France on separate occasions in 2023.
In one incident, in February 2023, 58 migrants from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria managed to get as far as France before they were discovered.
They had all been in the UK legally on visitor visas.
This is more than Keir Starmer’s return deal has been able to remove. As of Friday last week, 153 migrants have been removed and a further 134 have been brought into the UK under the reciprocal terms of the deal.
But the ‘one in one out’ scheme has been undermined by the fact that several of those deported to France have returned in small boats days later.
Shahnaz Khan, defending, said Belabes ‘has lived in the UK for 26 years, lives with his wife and four children and has strong community ties’.
He added: ‘He works as a driver for Uber Eats five days per week.’
Andrew Hudson, a Specialist Prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘Fighting migration crime is not only about prosecuting illegal entry to the UK but also going after those who make money from smuggling people to neighbouring countries and, in doing so, put desperate men, women and children in dangerous situations.
‘Madjid Belabes and his five drivers helped migrants cross the Channel 26 times over ten months and would have carried on doing so if they had not been caught.
‘The sentence given today shows how seriously our justice system takes this offending and stands as a warning to other gangs.
‘The Crown Prosecution Service will continue to work with our partners at home and overseas and play a vital role in bringing those involved in any aspect of organised immigration crime to justice.’
John Turner, NCA senior investigating officer, said: ‘We know the gangs and drivers involved in smuggling migrants out of the UK are often involved in smuggling into the UK too.
‘Like Madjid Belabes, their only concern is making money. Belabes didn’t care about the potentially fatal dangers facing migrants hidden in lorry trailers.
‘He was in charge of this cell and he was a senior member of the wider crime group. He recruited the drivers to move the migrants. But he also liked to get his hands dirty by gathering the migrants together and driving them himself. These criminal networks treat human beings like commodities.
‘Tackling organised immigration crime is a key priority for the NCA, and alongside our international law enforcement partners, we are relentless in our efforts to dismantle these networks wherever they operate.’
