A lorry driver who smuggled migrants into the UK for a London-based people smuggling gang has been jailed for two-years-and-eight months.
Vasile Balcovei, 49, from Tulcea in Romania dropped two individuals he had smuggled into the UK at Thurrock Services in Essex in February 2021.
The National Crime Agency say he was working for an organised crime group headed by Md Mokter Hossain, 54, from Woodford Green, who was the main subject of an NCA investigation codenamed Operation Symbolry. He was jailed for ten-and-a-half years at Snaresbrook Crown Court in June for directing a network which used complicit lorry drivers to move people in both directions across the Channel.
The Thurrock drop-off was witnessed by a member of the public, and the two illegal passengers were picked up by a mini-cab which was being tracked by the NCA.
Officers were later able to trace Balcovei’s lorry back to the scene, but by that time he had left the country and returned home.
He was eventually arrested in Romania and extradited to the UK to face charges in September.
At a hearing at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday 24 November he pleaded guilty to facilitating illegal immigration and was jailed for 32 months.
NCA senior investigating officer Chris Hill said:
“Balcovei can have been in no doubt that what he was doing was illegal, and he stood to gain financially from his criminality.
“Complicit lorry drivers like him played a critical role in Hossain’s people smuggling gang, which overall was involved in moving hundreds of people into the UK.
“Tackling organised immigration crime is a priority for the NCA, and working with partners here and abroad we are doing all we can to disrupt and dismantle the networks involved.”