莱斯特:20个印度人偷渡被判80年..

Enoch

[Leicester Mercury 英文报道 1月23日]

真的很怀疑那个80年是怎么判的...

HUNDREDS OF IMMIGRANTS SMUGGLED INTO BRITAIN BY GANG

BY CIARAN FAGAN AND SUZY GIBSON

10:30 - 22 January 2008

A series of multi-million pound people-smuggling rackets, which were centred on Leicester, brought hundreds of illegal immigrants to the UK and north America.

The true scale of the crimes can be revealed for the first time today after reporting restrictions were lifted at the conclusion of a trial yesterday.

Four people-smuggling operations broken by police since 1999 helped hundreds, possibly thousands, of Indian "clients" travel illegally to the UK, the US and Canada.

The immigrants were provided with forged passports, safe houses, British brand clothes, escorts and even English classes as they travelled to the West.

Mostly young men and travelling via South Africa, the immigrants paid between £8,000 and £20,000 each to the gangs, depending on their ultimate destinations.

The criminal groups were so well financed they could afford to bribe Government officials in South Africa and place at least one corrupt passport checker at a British airport.

A total of 20 people, including 12 from Leicester, have been jailed for more than 80 years in a campaign - codenamed Operation Coptine - run by the national Serious and Organised Crime Agency. All were charged with conspiracy to facilitate illegal entry to the UK.

Six "foot soldiers" were yesterday jailed after a trial at Leicester Crown Court under phase 2 of Coptine.

Under phase one last summer, a further 14 conspirators - including ringleader Yusuf Mewaswala, of Leicester - were put behind bars.

The removal of the restrictions following yesterday's hearing allowed police to reveal links with three earlier people-smuggling conspiracies.

It came to light that some of the criminals caught under Coptine had been jailed for the same crimes eight years ago.

Father-of-three and serial people smuggler Mewaswala, of North Evington, Leicester, and passport forger Pravin Patel emerged from prison sentences imposed in 2000 to pick up where they had left off.

Both were jailed for 10 and eight years respectively last June, it can now be reported.

Seven years earlier, both men were jailed for five years for their conspiracy to bring Indian nationals to the West.

Mewaswala also spent 15 months in prison for committing the same offence in the US in the 1990s.

The pair were the two most prominent figures to be brought to justice after an eight-year investigation into people smuggling, much of it centred on Leicester.

The discovery of a "passport factory" at Patel's Evington home in 1999 set police on a trail around the world as they investigated four illegal immigration scams.

Many of the illegal immigrants have since been deported, but some are still at large.

bill

他们算是偷渡成功了，哈哈～:face38