A 38-year-old man living in the outskirts of London was found guilty on Friday (July 28) at Reading Crown Court of three counts of smuggling migrants to the UK. The man, named as Najib K by Britain’s National Crime Agency NCA, is accused of being part of a smuggling network which has been bringing migrants into the UK since at least March 2019.

Najib K was identified by the NCA as being part of a smuggling network through a long investigation and numerous phone messages. He and his co-conspirator who pleaded guilty to the charges last year and so didn't face a court hearing had been stopped several times by the police over the course of their activities.

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Najib K's co-conspirator, Waqas I, aged 40, also from the outskirts of London, had previously pleaded guilty to the charges and did not face a court hearing. He was arrested in March 2021 when he was caught by police trying to break into a lorry to put migrants inside. According to a press release from the NCA, at the time of his arrest, Waqas I was "working for a people smuggling organized crime group" headed by a man named has Mokter H who has already been jailed for ten years for conducting smuggling operations in both directions across the Channel.

Phone conversations linked suspects

When Waqas I was arrested, the police seized a phone which had numerous conversations on it with Najib K. This, say the police, "outlined their involvement in a separate people smuggling network," where they are thought to have charged migrants up to £7,000 (around €8,150) to board a lorry to the UK.

Phone records presented during the trial showed that the pair were involved in several successful crossings, including bringing five migrants into the port of Harwich in March 2019. However, some attempts were foiled by the authorities, such as when police found 15 Vietnamese and one Afghan migrant in a lorry preparing to board a ferry at the Hook of Holland, also bound for Harwich, in May 2019.

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In August 2019, authorities also found 16 migrants in a purpose-built concealed place in a lorry covered in 2,000 loose tires. In this case, the lorry was preparing to board a ferry from Dieppe to Newhaven, states the NCA press release. Officers who discovered the migrants say the heat and the tires were making it difficult for the migrants to breathe.

Concealed in lorries

The lorry drivers involved in these two failed cases were jailed in the Netherlands and France. The NCA was then able to demonstrate that Waqas I was involved in both of these attempts. According to evidence gathered by the police, Waqas I and Najib K had also been tracking lorries they had arranged to be broken into without the drivers' knowledge in order to stow migrants.

One of these trackers, police say, was found at Najib K’s house when he was arrested. The pair was also found to have purchased a rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) in 2020 for smuggling purposes, and Waqas I attended a course to learn how to pilot the boat.

In July 2020, the pair was stopped by Border Force on their boat off the coast of Suffolk (eastern England), and they claimed to be "scouting for scuba diving sites."

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Charged with smuggling offenses

Then in July 2021, Waqas I was arrested and charged with people smuggling offenses, and then released on bail. Waqas I and Najib K were then detained in July 2022 by the NCA and charged with further offenses, including three counts of "conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration."

Waqas I pleaded guilty, but Najib K decided to go to trail. He was then found guilty on all three counts. The pair will be sentenced on October 30, stated the NCA. According to the NCA branch commander Andy Noyes, the pair had "no regard for the safety and security of those they were transporting, they were only interested in making money from them."

Noyes added that "in at least one case it was only the fact that the migrants were discovered by border agents that prevented them from being left in what could have been an incredibly dangerous, and potential fatal, situation."

The NCA concluded that tackling smuggling is one of their main priorities and that the agency is "determined to do all we can to disrupt and dismantle the organised crime groups involved."