Two jailed for smuggling migrants in tyre-filled van

Shafaz Khan, left, from Feltham, and Choudhry Rashied, from Southall, were jailed at Isleworth Crown Court

Two men have been jailed after they were caught smuggling migrants in a hidden compartment inside a van loaded with used tyres, the Home Office said.

Shafaz Khan, 55, and Choudhry Rashied, 58, both from London, hid the four Indian men behind a stack of tyres in a purpose-built hide with the intention of bringing them into the UK illegally.

The British nationals were stopped by Border Force officers at Newhaven Port, East Sussex, in March 2019.

They were sentenced to five years and three months each at Isleworth Crown Court for facilitating a breach of UK immigration law, the Home Office said.

Khan, from Feltham, west London, told the officers at the port they were travelling back from Belgium and that the rear of their van contained used tyres.

However, when officers searched the van, they found the migrants in squalid and dangerous conditions.

The men were found in a purpose-built hide, buried under stacks of dirty tyres

Chris Foster, immigration enforcement lead for London, said the migrants were found on a urine-soaked mattress and with no access to fresh air, food or water.

He commended the Border Force officers for detecting the migrants and said that without their intervention, Khan and Rashied would likely not have been arrested.

A Home Office investigation revealed the duo had hired the van solely for the purpose of people smuggling.

They had also built the hide that was used to conceal the migrants.

Phone analysis showed that the smugglers had assigned "burner'" phones to each other to help conceal their crimes.

CCTV footage also showed the pair meeting at a local cafe to plan the operation.

The smugglers told border officers they were transporting old tyres

The minister for border security and asylum, Dame Angela Eagle, said: "This case displays the lengths people smugglers will go to to disguise their criminal activity."

She added the smugglers had "exploited a group of individuals" by putting them in an unsafe situation "for their own financial gain".

Mr Foster said that Khan and Rashied, who is from Southall, west London, sold the migrants "a dream and promised them a safe journey and prosperous life in the UK, which was far from the truth".

He warned that "people smuggling gangs are playing with people's lives and undermining our border security", adding: "We will not just watch on."