Three men have been sentenced to a total of 22 years in prison for their involvement in a people smuggling operation that brought migrants into the UK using lorries and a planned boat crossing.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) disrupted the gang, led by Jalal Tarakhail, 25, from Ilford, Najib Khan, 39, also from Ilford, and Waqas Ikram, 41, from Dagenham.
The group used GPS trackers to follow lorries they had broken into, hiding migrants inside without the knowledge of the drivers. Ikram was caught red-handed in March 2021 during an NCA operation at South Mimms services while attempting to smuggle four migrants into the UK.
Ikram had previously worked for another smuggling ring led by Md Mokter Hossain, who had been jailed for over 10 years as part of the NCA’s Operation Symbolry. However, messages on Ikram’s iPhone revealed his involvement in a separate criminal network with Khan and Tarakhail. This network charged migrants up to £7,000 each for dangerous crossings in 2019.
The gang was also found to have purchased a rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) for future smuggling attempts over the Channel after some of their earlier efforts involving lorries had failed. During one of these lorry smuggling attempts, 16 migrants, including 11 children, were found hidden in a concealment bound for Newhaven.
NCA officers arrested Ikram and Khan in July 2022. Ikram pleaded guilty to people smuggling charges, while Khan was found guilty after a trial. Tarakhail was arrested in August 2023 at London Gatwick upon his return from Dubai and convicted in February 2024.
On 2 August, at Oxford Crown Court, Ikram and Khan were each sentenced to nine years, while Tarakhail received a four-year sentence.
NCA Branch Commander Andy Noyes said:
“These individuals risked the lives of others, charging them substantial sums for a dangerous and illegal journey. Ikram and Khan even went as far as purchasing a small boat, shifting their attention from HGVs in an effort to maximise their profits.”
The NCA remains committed to dismantling criminal networks involved in organised immigration crime to prevent further loss of life.
Piss in the Channel and for public consumption than any meaningful information.
Let the gangs know that in the, truly, interests of National Security, they will be targeted and slotted.
Northern Ireland is part of the UK and terrorists got slotted there. Missed slot terrorists anywhere; this is terrorists and gangs need to know there is one outcome, death.
British SF need to constantly practice their skills… let the sport begin.
Can’t correct typo.
Yes and then it turns out the rucksack is empty. Death is extremely final and random extrajudicial killings essentially destroy the rule of law. mistakes are made a lot even when security and police forces are convinced there is an immediate threat to life…let’s not have random people shot because they were mistakenly thought to be people smugglers.
Do they actually deserve extrajudicial killing for people smuggling…what about they 19 year old who posts some Neo Nazi tropes does he deserve to be slotted for terror activities…..as slipppery slopes go it’s a particularly horrific one…
But saying that, personally I’m a firm believer in horrid crimes deserving punishment, so I would bring back hard Labour for these sorts and have them breaking rocks for 20 years each…that would be a discouragement that did not involve the moral decay of the rule of law.
Dear Jonathan. You are a much more prolific and balanced writer than me, however, reply below.
So 9 years out in 5 years. Pitiful. How is that a deterrent? There earning 1000’s a week. I’d do 5 years porridge for that sort of money. Pathetic!
Agree, life and let’s be honest hard Labour to pay for their incarceration.
Good work. However, very much tip of the iceberg. If the U.K. doesn’t want more civil unrest and friction, immigration by any and all means must be brought under control. In this case imprisoning these men will cost the tax payer a great deal of money. I suggest civil recovery is almost a bigger deterrent in the long run. Take the lot, houses cars, furniture and furnishings, personal belongings of significant value, all of it. These types are always in it for the money. So hit them in the pocket. Hard and often.
Bet if they went before the judge they would have negligible assets, its all squirreled away.
Sadly, have to impact the whole family, they will all truthfully know where the money is coming from.
As soon as these were off the scene, the money is so good that others will have stepped in.
Even if you can get rid of all the gangs (you can’t, more will take their place), people will still come as long as they think they can get into and stay in the country. The gangs are just exploiting the situation.
The only way it will ever stop is to start turning the boats around. This will probably need the involvement of the navy, borderforce, special forces etc to be done safely, but it is 100% doable.
You’d also need to process and send back anyone who’s here illegally, which is probably over a million people. No politician would be willing to attempt this, though, as the pressure from the media would be immense: as soon as pictures/videos came out of ethnic minorities, especially families, being put onto buses, they’d cave in and stop.
The most likely outcome is everyone who’s here illegally will probably be allowed to stay, and the boats will mostly keep coming for the foreseeable future. Lets just hope everyone who’s coming here are nice people and value our way of life.
The navy can’t legally turn the boats back. Under the international law of the sea, they can only board or tow a civilian ship if it is in distress. If they were smuggling arms or drugs, fishing illegally etc., they could be boarded and towed by government forces.
But there are no such international rules governing the transit of refugees/illegal immigrants, so the RN would be in breach of international law if they were to do so.
That is why the French police attempt to stop the boats embarking, but do not attempt to turn them back at sea.
The RN has already successfully rebuffed two Home Secretaries who seemed ignorant of international law and wished the navy to take action. They shouldn’t and they won’t, the RN upholds international law, doesn’t break it.
Over the water, back in the day, they were slotted, 8 of them (?) they’d been warned.
The Rock, contrary to popular opinion the ECHR found in our favour; lawful killings albeit poorly performed.
Jonathan. We need the same standard of evidence and when obtained, kill them. Too many boat children have died in the English Channel, too many people have received easy money and too many people are out-raged by stoked crossings… to which I might add, given what the Russians have done with migrants against NATO Eastern Borders, the operations are well organised.
Kill them, send the message – to any and all, you get involved, you die. Have to disagree with you on this one Jonathan, you are one of the most sensible and respected commentators on this site.
Should some family member complain to the ECHR, we should achieve a standard of evidence, equivalent to the killings on the Rock.
I think the important thing about the killing of the IRA terrorists on the Rock was that all the evidence was that they were an imminent threat and had both a bomb and weapons. Essentially the solders were never going to be Able to apprehend them without risk of death..and as soon as they did not immediately surrender the soldiers did what they were trained to do. The fact there was no bomb or guns was an operational fuck up…but they were still terrorists planning to blow up a building in gib so f%ckem as far as I’m concerned.
But you then get situations like the poor lad jean Charles da Silva e de Menezes, who was a completely innocent man going to work who was shoot in the head 11 times because he has slanted eyes and the soldiers who was keeping an eye on the block of flats he came out of was taking a piss at the time, rushed the ID and radioed through poor intel.
The smugglers are not high risk killers liable to go out in a blaze of glory, if they can be safely arrested they should be, so we can stand them in a court and give them a life sentence of misery. But if they should resist arrest and have a likelihood of carrying weapons then maybe lethal force is needed, If they are a king pin based in a place we cannot get them ( say Iran, Syria Afghanistan etc) then maybe the same policy of extrajudicial killings we use for terrorist would be in order ( and that I would support, in the same way as I would drug barons) …but not on these shores or anywhere the rule of law applies.
what I would do is ensure the sentences for anyone involved in trafficking has a life sentence, be they the boat maker supplying the gangs, the gangs themselves or the people who employ trafficked people. Life in prison for anyone that profits, no matter where in the chain..that will kill the demand….
I would also if possible remove citizenship to anyone we could who was involved..so if we ever let them out of prison they can be deported..I would also seize every asset they own.
So being part of the chain and being caught essentially utterly and completely destroys your life.
Don’t get me wrong I get where you are coming from, anyone who profits out of sticking innocent men,women and child in an inflatable dinghy and sending them to the Ogin for profit, deserve anything coming their way, including a nasty end..but for me it’s all about the potential error of killing an innocent ( why I don’t believe in the death penalty, humans are fallible as our all our systems and you cannot take death back and make good) and the erosion of the rule of law which I consider sacrosanct and the thing that separates and elevates the west and other nations that follow it from the rest of the world.
And there you go.
Your writings are erudite and very reasonable.
No reasonable person could argue with and every barsteward would use your notion of justice.
My pendulum has swung; they should know they will receive instant death and so will there Russian, Belarusian, Iranian, and every other terrorist organisation we care to name.
You send people to their deaths in the Channel, please love our enhanced reciprocal gifts.
The IRA knew what was coming in the late 80s, Thatcher changed the message; these people will understand just as quickly as the terrorists in the Iranian Embassy siege did, what it means to commit vile crimes against humanity.
Forever Jonathan, you are a fantastic scribe.
You’re advocating for the death penalty without trial, the death of our civilisation
22 each would be much better.
The smugglers don’t create the demand, they just facilitate it. The demand is created by the UK itself, offering accommodation, food, cash benefits, mobile phones, free legal representation. Unless these pull factors are removed, the flow will never stop, however many smugglers are caught and jailed.
.
Surely both deterents need to be implemented?
The jail time needs to be significantly increased (I initially thought it was 22 years each !) .
Surely any deaths of migrants even loosely connected should be taken into consideration when sentences are given- and if not UK citizens they should be deported (I see the Irony there BTW) .
Added to that their profits should be recovered through proceeds of crime, and If that means their dependents life styles become significantly reduced so what- they enjoyed the ‘benefits’.
As for stopping the easy benefits that draw them – yep goes without saying , unfortunately there are too many liberals ready to wring their hand and sob.
And guess who took the last Labour government to court and won the case of giving illegal imagrants the right too claim benefits none other than at the time Kier Starmer QC . Do you really think this Globalist wants the boats too stop ?
So much for Albanian gangs being the root cause of all our issues hey…
Send them on on of these robot boats with supplies, destination Yemen.
Is this a defence story?? Looks more like one for a populist political journal, rather than UKDJ…
Absolutely right. The website should have put their foot down on this long ago. This has nothing to do with UK defence in the meaning of the word and spirit. It’s a government policy issue and not up to the military to decide and implement policies
The thread has become a voice for all the testosterone fueled shoot ’em first brigade who would love to be given the hardware to shoot everyone.
9 years… release after 5, so what kind of deterrent is that???
They will get out, seen to be behaving themselves, and take up the highly lucrative ‘career choice’ again.
British justice is a joke. If you want to deter people, then apply appropriate sentences. The ‘Book of tariffs & other sentencing, by ‘A. R. Sole’, should be binned, and rewritten, with the clear intention of deterring people, once and for all.
The problem will continue when these vile people are released – UNLESS the government changes the post sentence laws. Having taken away the majority of the ill gotten gains from the people smugglers & slave labour operators once they have been sentenced there must be a follow up. One release from prison they should be transported to an airport and flown back to their country of origin and banned from ever entering the UK again. This would of course mean a different approach if they were British nationals born in the UK.