Suspected people-smuggling ringleaders arrested in Essex and London

Five men were arrested during raids by the National Crime Agency

Two suspected ringleaders of a gang accused of smuggling migrants, including a convicted rapist, into the UK have been arrested.

A 34-year-old man from Grays, Essex, and a 34-year-old man from Dagenham, east London, were detained on suspicion of assisting unlawful immigration.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) allege the group charged between £2,500 and £7,500 to bring migrants to the UK.

Three other arrests have been made and all remained in custody, the NCA said.

The men, who were detained in early morning raids, were thought to be part of an Albanian organised crime group.

They were alleged to have brought migrants to the UK in small boats and HGVs.

This included a group of 46 predominantly Albanian migrants, including young children, who were on a boat that arrived from France last August.

Among them was a convicted rapist who had previously been deported from the UK and has since been deported again, the NCA said.

Officers arrested a man in Grays in south Essex during an early morning raid

The group is also accused of using lorries to smuggle people into the country on three occasions between October and November last year, travelling from Coquelles, France, and stopping to drop them off at service stations on the M25 at Cobham in Surrey, and in Thurrock in Essex.

A 55-year-old man from Belgium who was allegedly the driver of the lorry was arrested in Folkestone, Kent.

Two other men were arrested in north London on suspicion of unlawful entry to the UK.

Chris Farrimond, director of threat leadership at the NCA, said: "We have dismantled a suspected organised crime group behind a number of dangerous migrant crossings last year.

"As we target callous organised criminal gangs, we will not hesitate to also pursue HGV drivers complicit in helping them."

There were currently more than 90 investigations into organised immigration crime into networks operating in the UK and overseas, he said.