Russian jailed for attempting to smuggle migrants including woman, aged 5, out of the UK

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A Russian lorry driver has been jailed after being caught smuggling migrants, one as younger as 5, from Britain to France.

Nikolai Kuznetsov, 39, and his HGV had been stopped attempting to cross the Channel by Border Force officers guarding the Dover Docks on 17 August final 12 months.

As border guards scoured his trailer 22 migrants, including a five-year-old woman and her mother and father, had been discovered hiding inside.

The migrants, all of North African origin, had been attempting to keep away from French border immigration/visa controls as they tried to go away Great Britain.

Kuznetsov was arrested by officers from the National Crime Agency on suspicion of facilitating unlawful entry to an EU state.

He pleaded responsible at the first alternative at Canterbury Magistrates Court and was sentenced to 4 years and 4 months in jail.

John Turner, Operations Manager at the National Crime Agency stated: “Kuznetsov was complicit with the people smugglers whose only concern was making money, rather than the wellbeing of those individuals found in his trailer.

“Thankfully they were found and safeguarded, but we know organised crime groups will continue in their attempts to use migrants to make money.”

He added: “This sentencing sends a clear message to anyone concerned in facilitating illegal migration, to or from the UK, that they will be caught and will receive a custodial sentence.”

It got here after the last member of a people-smuggling gang linked to the deaths of 39 males, ladies and kids in Essex was jailed for seven years.

Haulage boss Caolan Gormley, 26, from Co Tyrone, was pushed by “greed” when he plotted to convey migrants into the UK from mainland Europe 3 times in October 2019, the Old Bailey heard.

One of the journeys was scuppered by French border officers, with some migrants from that journey believed to have died days later in a deadly run in a single day on October 22-23 2019.

Gormley had denied being concerned, claiming he thought he was serving to convey alcohol into the UK illegally.

His conviction brings the complete quantity of individuals to be convicted over the plot to 11, 5 of whom had been additionally convicted of the manslaughters.