Halifax man helped smuggle migrants into the UK in the back of a spinach lorry with organised crime gang

Mariwan Mustafa, 33, of Ovenden Way has been remanded in custody after being found guilty of facilitating illegal immigration.

He will be sentenced on April 20.

Mustafa was part of an organised crime gang whose activities were uncovered following a four-year investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

In the early hours of March 11, 2019, NCA officers watched as members of the gang drove their VW Touran people carrier to rendezvous with a lorry driven by Romanian national Marinel Danut Palage, 31, at an industrial estate in West Sussex.

The truck had arrived in Portsmouth on a ferry from Caen in northern France the previous evening and was carrying a legitimate load of spinach from Spain.

But it was also carrying at least three people who had been brought to the UK illegally.

The VW drove away only to stop in a layby on the A27 where the migrants were transferred into two other cars.

One - a Vauxhall Astra - was stopped by the NCA on the A34. It was being driven by Mustaf and two Iraqi nationals - a sister and brother aged 18 and 13 - were in the passenger seats.

The second car was stopped by police on the M3 and a 30-year-old Iraqi woman was found inside.

Palage, a resident of Spain, attempted to run off as NCA officers approached his truck but he was detained and arrested.

During a search of his cab, plastic bags containing £34,500 in cash were found. Further bundles of euros and sterling to the value of around £7,000 were located hidden behind a tachograph panel.

The VW Touran was stopped at Liphook services on the A3. In the driver’s seat was Goran Jalal, 37 and of Brandfort Street in Bradford. He is now wanted by the NCA having absconded following his arrest.

In the passenger seat was Kamaran Kader, 44, of Basil Street in Bradford.

NCA investigators pieced together the conspiracy from seized phones, identifying other members of the group and at least two other suspected people smuggling events into Portsmouth in January and March 2019.

Phone evidence showed that Pshtewan Ghafour, aged 37 and of Camsell Court in Middlesbrough, had travelled down to Portsmouth with Jalal and Kader on the same nights that Palage arrived in his lorry on a ferry from France.

Two other members of the group were identified through the phones - Jamal Saied, aged 38 and of Brightstone Walk in Manchester, and Hemin Salih, aged 37 and of Bryson Walk in Manchester.

Palage and Ghafour were found guilty of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration today (Tuesday).

They were remanded in custody and will be sentenced on April 13, alongside Kader who pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

Saied and Mustafa were found guilty of facilitating illegal immigration. Salih absconded before the start of the trial but was convicted of the same offence in his absence.

NCA Branch Commander Richard Harrison said: “This people smuggling group were content to put vulnerable migrants, including children, in the back of refrigerated lorries for hours on end during dangerous Channel crossings.”