A man will spend almost 11 years behind bars after hiring taxi drivers to smuggle migrants out of Britain.

Madjid Belabes, 53, arranged for five taxi drivers to take people from London to lay-bys in Kent before being put in lorries and taken to France.

He made at least £287,000 from the plot, charging on average £1,200 for each person.

In one incident in February 2023, 58 people from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria managed to get as far as France before they were discovered. They had all been in the UK legally on visitor visas.

Prosecutors argued that Belabes masterminded the illegal transportation of people 26 times between December 2022 and September 2023.

He pleaded guilty on October 29 and was found guilty yesterday of possessing more than £11,000 in cash from his crimes and sentence

See Full Page