
A group of taxi drivers who helped a criminal gang smuggle hundreds of migrants out of the UK in the back of lorries has been sentenced.
The operation was led by 54-year-old Madjid Belabes, an Uber Eats driver who pocketed nearly £290,000 by charging people £1,200 each to be transported to mainland Europe.
Between late 2022 and 2023, Belabes organised 26 trips, at one point leading to the discovery of 58 people hidden in a single vehicle by French officials.
The syndicate specifically recruited cabbies because their presence on the road would not look suspicious to police if they were stopped with multiple passengers.
These drivers would pick up migrants in London and ferry them to secluded lay-bys in Kent, where they were loaded into HGVs.
While Belabes was previously jailed for 10 years 9 months in November, his associates Samir Zerguine and Mohamed Issaoun received prison terms of two years and 23 months respectively at Kingston Crown Court on March 13.
Three other men involved in the plot: Mourad Bouchlaghem, Mohamed Mabrouk and Said Bouazza, received suspended sentences.
National Crime Agency (NCA) investigators used phone records and CCTV to dismantle the network, noting that the gang treated human beings like "commodities."
NCA officer John Turner highlighted the callous nature of the crime, stating: “Belabes and these taxi drivers didn’t care about the potentially fatal dangers facing migrants hidden in lorry trailers.”
He added that for these criminals, “their only concern is making money.”
Prosecutors emphasised that the plot was driven by "pure greed" and represented a serious breach of border security.
Andrew Hudson of the Crown Prosecution Service warned that while this specific case did not end in tragedy, “smuggling people across borders in lorries is highly dangerous.”
Authorities have pledged to remain relentless in dismantling similar organised crime rings that put lives at risk for profit.

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