A man from Manchester found guilty of facilitating people smuggling is a wanted fugitive, police have revealed.
Hemin Ali Salih, 37, was part of an organised crime group smuggling migrants into the UK in the back of a HGV through Portsmouth port, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has revealed. Five of the gang's members, including him, have now been convicted in court.
The NCA said Salih, of Bryson Walk in Gorton, absconded before the start of a trial, but was convicted in his absence on Tuesday of facilitating illegal immigration. Police confirmed a warrant has been issued for his arrest and he is due to be sentenced with others next month.
A second man from Manchester, Jamal Walid Saied, has also been convicted. Saied, 38, of Brightstone Walk, Longsight, was found guilty by a jury of the same offence and will face sentence on April 20 with Salih. He was remanded in custody today ahead of the sentencing hearing. Two other men admitted charges they faced.
The NCA said Salih and Saied - both said to be members of the OCG - were identified through mobile phone evidence and found to be in the Chichester area on March 11, 2019.
In the early hours of that day, the NCA said its officers watched as members of the group drove a VW Touran people carrier to rendezvous with a lorry driven by Romanian national Marinel Danut Palage, 31, at an industrial estate in the Runcton area of West Sussex.
The truck had arrived in Portsmouth on a ferry from Caen in northern France the previous evening, and was carrying a legitimate load of spinach from Spain. But, said the NCA, it was also carrying at least three people who had been brought to the UK illegally.
After meeting up with the lorry the VW drove away, only to stop in a layby on the A27, where migrants were transferred into two further cars.
One, a Vauxhall Astra, was stopped by the NCA on the northbound A34 northbound. Driven by gang member Mariwan Mustafa, 33, two Iraqi nationals - a sister and brother aged 18 and 13 - were in the passenger seats. The second car, an Audi A3, was stopped by police on the M3 and a 30-year-old Iraqi woman was found.
Palage attempted to run off as NCA officers approached his truck, but he was detained and arrested.
In a statement, the NCA said: "During a search of his cab, plastic bags containing £34,500 cash were found. Further bundles of euros and sterling to the value of around 7,000 were located hidden behind a tachograph panel.
"Later that morning the VW Touran was stopped at Liphook services on the A3. In the driver’s seat was Goran Jalal, 37, from Bradford, who is the alleged ringleader of the network and was in contact with Palage to arrange the meet-up. He is now wanted by the NCA having absconded following his arrest.
"In the passenger seat was gang member Kamaran Kader, 44, also from Bradford.
"NCA investigators pieced together the conspiracy following the seizure of phones, identifying other members of the group and at least two other suspected people smuggling events into Portsmouth in January and March 2019. Phone evidence showed that Pshtewan Ghafour, 37 and from Middlesbrough, had travelled down to Portsmouth with Jalal, Kader on the same nights that Palage arrived in his lorry on a ferry from France.
"Analysis of the cash seized from Palage's lorry found Ghafour and Kader's fingerprints on the bags and envelopes containing the money."
A four-week trial was held at Bournemouth Crown Court. Palage and Ghafour were found guilty of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration and were remanded in custody to be sentenced on April 13, alongside Kader who pleaded guilty to the same charge at an earlier hearing.
Mustafa, from Halifax, was found guilty of facilitating illegal immigration and remanded in custody to be sentenced on April 20. A warrant for Jalal's arrest has also been issued, the NCA said.
NCA Branch Commander Richard Harrison said: "This people smuggling group were content to put vulnerable migrants, including children, in the back of refrigerated lorries for hours on end during dangerous Channel crossings.
"It is clear from the evidence we found that their sole reason was for profit, without any regard to the migrants' safety."
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