Five arrested after ‘attempt to smuggle 23 Bangladeshis out of the UK in lorry’

Five people have been charged with conspiring to facilitate illegal migration after 23 Bangladeshi nationals were found hidden inside a lorry heading out of the UK.

Officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) stopped the lorry as it was approaching the Dover ferry port and found the men hidden inside as part of a sting operation. Police had been tracking a suspected organised crime group involved in smuggling migrants out of the UK and said immigration crime was threatening “the border security of both the UK and France”.

The majority of the Bangladeshi men - 22 out of 23 - were in the UK legally and were released after being discovered, the NCA said on Wednesday. One was arrested by immigration enforcement, the police said.

A 43-year-old man, suspected to be the ringleader of the crime network, was arrested in New Cross, London, and £30,000 was also seized as part of the investigation. Three other men arrested, aged between 43 and 55, allegedly drove taxis from London to a location near Whitstable, Kent, as part of the plan. The lorry driver, a 32-year-old Romanian passport holder, was also arrested.

The group are alleged to have been involved in trying to move predominantly Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals out of the UK in lorries, in an attempt to avoid border controls and French entry restrictions.

NCA branch commander Saju Sasikumar said: “Organised crime groups involved in people smuggling risk the safety of those they transport, and also threaten the border security of both the UK and France.

“Tackling organised immigration crime remains a top priority for the NCA, and this investigation is one of around 100 ongoing investigations into networks or individuals in the top tier of this type of criminality”.

It comes after the NCA warned in November last year that people smuggling gangs were targeting lorry drivers to move migrants both into and out of the UK.

Police said smugglers were “known to be targeting drivers, offering them thousands of pounds to transport people across the border in otherwise legitimate loads”.

Between July and October last year, the NCA arrested nine lorry drivers in Kent for people smuggling offences.