Eight members of a people smuggling gang face sentencing after a woman was found crammed in the glovebox of a car.
Three of the gang face jail after being found guilty of assisting unlawful immigration, while their five accomplices could also be locked up, according to the Home Office.
Border Force officers found the Vietnamese woman hidden in a cramped compartment concealed behind the dashboard of the Vauxhall Vectra in June 2022.
The discovery prompted an investigation which exposed a cruel people smuggling network, leading to the seizure of fake documents, more than 20,000 illicit cigarettes and £6,000 in cash.
Three members of the gang faced a 10-week trial after denying assisting unlawful immigration to the UK.
Redar Curtis, 30, of Guernsey Way, Kennington; Jozef Kadet, 25, of Constable Street, Manchester; and Khales Akram Jabar, 44, of Barnaby Avenue, Middlesbrough, were each found guilty of the charge at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on Wednesday (January 15).
The court heard how, between 2022 and 2024, the gang unlawfully facilitated immigration into the UK by land and air, creating and possessing counterfeit ID believed to have been made at a forgery factory in Greece, according to the Home Office.
Five gang members – brothers Mukhlis Jamal Hamadamin, 43, and Muhamad Jamal Hamadamin, 27; Yassen Jalal Mohammed, 43; Dlawar Omar, 40 and Curtis’s wife Emily Etherington, 37 – pleaded guilty to charges put against them.
Mukhlis Hamadamin, of Brook Road, Stockport, admitted four counts of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration to the UK; one count of conspiracy to make an article for use in a fraud and one count of possession of an identity document with improper intention.
His brother, also of Brook Road, pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and one count of possessing an identity document with improper intention.
Mohammed, of Woodhouse Grove, Huddersfield, admitted three counts of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration to the UK. At the same time, Omar of Pendrill Street, Hull, Etherington, and Guernsey Way each pleaded guilty to one count of the same charge.
The woman was found behind the dashboard of a vehicle driven by Jozef Balog at the UK border in June 2022 after he arrived from France.
Balog pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in January last year.
In July 2022, Etherington was stopped by Border Force officers after they found she was hiding another woman in the dashboard of her vehicle.
Her husband, Curtis, was linked to the operation, prompting the Home Office to launch a wider investigation.
The eight will appear at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on January 29 for a hearing where a sentencing date is expected to be set.
Minister for Border Security and Asylum Dame Angela Eagle said: “This case shows the ruthless tactics of criminal gangs who smuggle people through Europe and into the UK.
“They have no regard for human life and exploit vulnerable individuals solely for profit, putting them in incredibly dangerous situations.”
Paul Moran, Chief Immigration Officer at Home Office Immigration Enforcement, said: “Today’s convictions are the result of a complex investigation into organised crime that stretched across Europe and took over two years of hard work by our Criminal and Financial Investigation teams in Dover and Manchester.
“Our team worked closely with the Spanish National Police, Greek Police, and Irish (An) Garda Siochana to break up this criminal group, which was illegally smuggling non-EU nationals into the UK.
“This group put profit ahead of people’s safety, facilitating them through dangerous methods in vehicles and by air, showing no concern for the wellbeing of those they smuggled.”