People smugglers jailed for total of 10 years

Five men have been jailed for a combined total of ten years for attempting to smuggle people into the UK via the Channel Tunnel and Dover.

41 year old Faridoun Sadag from Catford was the key player in the group.

Sadag has been jailed for three and a half years for arranging two smuggling attempts.

31 year old Sabar Parfane was jailed for 22 months and 26 year old Haroon Rahimiy was jailed for 18 months, they are both from Hither Green.

35 year old Hashmatullah Zamani from Catford was jailed for 20 months and 45 year old Uchenna Enyiagu, a German national from New Cross London, was sentenced to 18 months.

In September 2014, Zamani was driving a car with Rahimiy in the front passenger seat when they were stopped by Border Force officers at the tourist controls at the Channel Tunnel.

Two adults and a child from Iran were in the rear of the vehicle but did not hold valid passports.

Three other passports were found and suspected to be used fraudulently.

Zamani claimed he borrowed the car from friend Sadag who asked him to pick up family members, he claimed he did not know they were illegal migrants.

Sadag's fingerprints were found on the packaging which contained the passports found in the car and was arrested in November 2014.

The vehicle had been loaned to Parfane who reported it as stolen.

Parfane's passport was one of those used to smuggle the Iranian migrants through the Channel Tunnel.

In a separate smuggling attempt in July 2014, Enyiagu was driving a car which was stopped at Dover.

A man from Afghanistan presented a passport in Sadag's name which was in fact not his.

Both men were arrested and Enyiagu later claimed Sadag had sent him to pick the man up from Calais.

All five men were charged with assisting unlawful immigration into the UK and all of them pleaded not guilty before the trial.