'La Nonna' used charity to hide people trafficking

Pranvera Smith started a refugee charity "legitimately" but "strayed" into criminal activity

An Albanian woman has been jailed after using her charity to hide an attempt to smuggle people into the UK.

Police said Pranvera Smith referred to herself as "La Nonna" - or an Albanian mafia "Grandmother" - to intimidate immigrants into paying £1,000 each.

From a shop in Birmingham, the 47-year-old would charge refugees for "free" services including benefits and housing support.

She was jailed for five years and four months at Birmingham Crown Court.

Smith, of Princethorpe Road, Birmingham, had previously admitted conspiring to breach immigration law alongside her partner Flamur Daka, 44, of Pell Crescent, Oldbury, who was jailed for four years.

Smith's partner, Flamur Daka, was also jailed for his role in the operation

Both also admitted drugs offences.

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Smith's charity, Freedom to Stay, promoted itself as as helping newly-arrived Albanian asylum seekers find their feet by applying for benefits and care money as well as applications to stay.

A police raid discovered a "price list" for these services and the court heard she is thought to have made at least £130,000 from those she exploited.

The court heard she also "turned a blind eye" to the exploitation of those she claimed to support, who were often indentured workers repaying criminal gangs who brought them to the UK.

Smith and Daka opened a restaurant on Bearwood High Street to launder their cash, West Midlands Police said

"This was sophisticated criminal activity on the part of Smith," the prosecution said.

"It involved insight and knowledge but also contact with the criminal underworld, particularly the Albanian criminal underworld, and it was concealed beneath the veneer of a charity organisation."

Sentencing her, Judge Kristina Montgomery QC acknowledged the charity had "legitimate" origins but had "strayed".

"What took over was financial motivation," she said.

"Those who place the vulnerable and desperate in a position which is so inherently risky for financial reward must then themselves pay the price."