A haulier has been jailed for his role in smuggling migrants between the UK and France.
Romanian national Nicusor Lacatus, 53, recruited other HGV drivers willing to move migrants across the border for a UK-based gang, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
He was given a six-year prison term at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday after admitting facilitating illegal immigration at an earlier hearing.
"This case should serve as a warning," said NCA branch commander Saju Sasikumar, adding: "We know crime groups try to recruit HGV drivers... but the penalties for getting involved can be harsh and life-changing."
The agency said it arrested Lacatus in November at an M20 service station in Folkestone, Kent, as he prepared to leave the UK in his van.
One of the drivers he recruited, 40-year-old Romanian national Sebastian Haprian, had been stopped two months earlier in Dover carrying 22 migrants in the back of his lorry.
Cash totalling £3,600 was also found and phone evidence showed he had been in contact with Lacatus in the build-up to the incident, according to the NCA.
Haprian was handed a three-year prison sentence in December after admitting his role in the scheme.
Sasikumar said smugglers operated in both directions across the Channel and often drivers transported migrants into and out of the UK.
Follow BBC Kent on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.
Related internet links
latest_posts
- 1
Instructions to Perform Fundamental Upkeep on Your Slam 1500. - 2Jury says Johnson & Johnson owes $40 million to 2 cancer patients who used talcum powders
- 3Slims down for Maintainable Weight reduction
- 4Compassion and Association: Building Significant Connections
- 5Meet ‘NASA Mike,’ who’s done 105,000 handstands around the world
- Fake new headlights rule steer Australian drivers astray
- I visited the largest collection of public telescopes in the US in Oregon's high desert, and the dark skies blew me away
- Windows to the Previous: An Excursion Through the World's Notable Engineering
- 10 Picturesque Campgrounds That Will Raise Your Outside Involvement with American
- Shredded cheese sold in dozens of states recalled due to potential for metal fragment contamination
- Beating Scholastic Difficulties: Understudy Examples of overcoming adversity
- This is Countdown, CNN’s newsletter covering NASA’s first time sending humans to deep space in over 50 years
- How did I get my own unique set of fingerprints?
- Moscow: Russia well-positioned to withstand oil market shocks
