Smugglers of 31 migrants including children and pregnant woman jailed

Akan Brayan (left) and Dylan Shwani (right) paid drivers to hide 31 Iraqi migrants in hired vans before smuggling them into the UK

Two men have been jailed for smuggling 31 migrants into the UK, including seven children and a pregnant woman.

Akan Brayan, from Nottingham, and Dylan Shwani, from Lincoln, paid drivers to hide the illegal Iraqi migrants in hired vans between 2016 and 2018.

The Home Office said officers found one woman cradling a child crammed among tyres in a van.

The pair, who were found guilty by a jury, were both jailed for seven years at Nottingham Crown Court.

Brayan, 37, and Shwani, 38, were convicted following a five-year investigation by the Home Office's criminal and financial investigations unit.

The Home Office said a woman cradling a small child, with other children sat around her in the tightly enclosed space were found in one van

The unit discovered the pair had paid six drivers, from Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, on six separate occasions to smuggle people.

The majority of the migrants were men, but officers also found children as young as one year old and a pregnant woman in the vans.

People were crammed among stacks of tyres, second-hand furniture and household goods.

The Home Office said officers found boxes of goods deliberately placed to hide people, as well as paprika on the floor in one van in an attempt to confuse sniffer dogs by masking the scent of humans.

Vans were intercepted by Border Force and French law enforcement officers at sites including Dover in Kent and Coquelles, near Calais in France.

The Home Office said people were found crammed amongst household goods and boxes deliberately placed to hide them

Tom Pursglove MP, Home Office minister for illegal migration, said: "These brazen attempts to smuggle illegal migrants, including very young children, into the UK in tiny, air-tight spaces with room to barely move, is despicable."

The Home Office's Immigration Enforcement body was also involved and its deputy director for criminal and financial investigations, Ben Thomas, said:  "These two evil men endangered the lives of people, including children, to line their pockets without a care in the world for their safety.

"I hope these sentencings sends a powerful message that breaking the law and putting individuals' lives at risk will not go unpunished."