Six French citizens who were lured into people smuggling by adverts on Snapchat offering lucrative payments have been jailed today for a total of eight years and 10 months.
The group reached out to people smugglers in France who put adverts out on Snapchat ‘fishing’ for people who would make trips to the UK with immigrants hidden in cars in exchange for cash.
The three men and three women pretended to be tourists but were caught in a convoy of cars bringing three Vietnamese nationals into the UK who were crudely hidden in the footwells of their cars.
A woman, a man, and a 16-year-old were found ‘crushed’ under the seats, ‘hidden’ by luggage, coats, and other items. Some needed hospital treatment.
A court heard the gang arrived in Poole, Dorset, by ferry on the night of 4 August last year, having boarded at Cherbourg.
Each of their three cars had a man in the driver’s seat and a woman in the front passenger seat. They claimed to be visiting London, but sniffer dogs detected something suspicious in the back of the cars during a routine security search.
In the rear footwell of each car was a single Vietnamese national hiding under luggage and clothing. A man, a woman, and a 16-year-old girl required hospital treatment for crushing injuries and dehydration.
A judge was told they received a ‘financial gain’ of €1,000 (£878) each.
Six French citizens who were lured into people smuggling by adverts on Snapchat offering lucrative payments have been jailed today. Pictured: Mr Rayhan Diamane, 21, who was sentenced to 18 months for bringing illegal immigrants into Britain
Pictured: Mr Imrane Trabelsi, 21. He was sentenced to 18 months. The group comprised of three French men and three French women who are aged from 19 to 26
Image shows a migrant hdiding between luggage after being smuggled
Today, after the six were jailed at Winchester Crown Court after admitting assisting unlawful immigration at a hearing last year, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) issued a photograph of one of those trafficked attempting to hide in the rear footwell of a car.
Mouhammad Toure, 26, Sarah Guedj, 23, Rayhan Diamane, Mariam Erraji and Imrane Trabelsi, all 21, were jailed for 18 months.
Sohane Dahamni, 19, received a 16-month sentence.
Sentencing the six defendants, Judge Angela Morris described smuggling as a ‘lucrative and dangerous’ enterprise, and said that the male Vietnamese migrant told police officers he had paid £9000 to reach the UK.
The CPS said that during their police interviews, the defendants largely refused to comment – but some denied knowing there was a third person in the back of their vehicle.
It will be decided after they have served their sentence whether or not they will be deported back to France.
The court heard care worker Erraji and telecoms worker Toure are a married couple, and just a week before they were arrested by police, they came to the UK and drove from Poole to West London.
They made a stop in a cul-de-sac for 12 minutes at 2am in the morning, which Judge Alisson Morris described as a ‘dry run’ for the smuggling that occurred two weeks later.
Sarah Guedj, 23, was sentenced to 18 months. She and her peers reached out to people smugglers in France who put adverts out on Snapchat ‘fishing’ for people who would make trips to the UK with immigrants hidden in cars in exchange for cash
Pictured: Mariam Erraji, 21. She was sentenced to 18 months. In a three-car convoy, the six posed as couples who were visiting Britain as tourists and entered via the car ferry at Poole Harbour, Dorset
Mouhammad Toure, 26, was sentenced to 18 months
On August 4, the smugglers, Diamane and Erraji took a Peugeot, Trabelsi and Dahamni took a Renault Laguna, and Toure and Guedj took a Volkswagen to Cherbourg harbour.
The male smugglers were driving the vehicles, whilst the females were in the passenger seats.
They then boarded the ferry to Poole and transported the Vietnamese nationals to the UK.
On arrival, the police found the three Vietnamese nationals crammed in the back of the cars. One man had to be taken to the hospital for dehydration and given an IV drip because he was so dehydrated.
Prosecuting, Giles Bedloe said: ‘The 16-year-old said she was picked up in what she called the Jungle, meaning the port. She was hidden in the car for five or six hours.
‘She said she found it very hard, very difficult to breathe in such an awkward position. She said she was given water but not food. She said she thought she was going to die.’
It was heard that the way the smugglers heard about the job to take the immigrants to the UK was over Snapchat.
Mr Bedloe said: ‘There was a liaison between the individuals over social media to arrange these trips. It seems that Snapchat was the vehicle by which these opportunities are advertised.’
Aleksander Lloyd, mitigating for Rayhan Diamane, said: ‘He is a young person who is easily targeted. No doubt there was a Snapchat message that was sent, fishing for those to do what was wanted, and he finds himself here.
‘I wouldn’t seek to say they were exploited, but they are targeted because they are vulnerable to financial gain.’
Diamane, who was 20 at the time of the offence, was taking a college course that was similar to taking a B-tech in France, and he had two part-time jobs around his course.
Mr Lloyd said that Diamane thought that if he got caught, he would spend 24 hours in a police station and he would be sent back home.
He said that Diamane had been ‘reckless’ and had demonstrated ‘immaturity’ in his decision to take part in this offence.
Judge Angela Morris said he had underestimated the consequences of his actions, saying: ‘Those who traffic people are taken very seriously in this country.’
She said: ‘In the case of Guedj and Toure, you had entered the UK via the same route a week earlier on August 29, in what some might describe as rather questionable circumstances.
‘I sentence all of you on the basis that your primary motive was financial. It was organised for all three of these Vietnamese migrants to be placed in the vehicles.
Ms Sohane Dahamni, 19, was sentenced to 16 months
‘But it does require a level of participation to secrete a person in a vehicle in a manner where they remain undetected, and they must remain undetected for many hours.
‘At least one of those migrants required medical assistance when they were found.
‘This venture was to exploit the plight of desperate people for money.’
Rebecca Lee, mitigating for Guedj, who was 21 at the time of the offence, said that her actions had been ‘thoughtless and selfish’.
She had been volunteering as a foreign languages teacher in Paris and was studying at university before the offence.
Dahamni, 19, was the youngest of the smugglers, and she wrote a letter of ‘remorse’ about her actions to the judge.
Judge Morris said when sentencing Erraji: ‘Like the others you became involved in the same social media Snapchat and the consequences of your actions have not been lost on you entirely.’
Karen Fairley, a Senior Crown Prosecutor from CPS Wessex, said: ‘This wasn’t a sophisticated attempt at people smuggling but it is typical of the desperate lengths that migrants and those who profit from them will go to.
‘What is unusual is how young all six are and the impact a criminal record will have on their lives when they return to France.
‘Immigration crime is not worth the devastation it causes the law breakers or their families.’
