Smugglers who flew migrants from France to Essex are jailed
TWO Albanian nationals who used a plane to illegally transport economic migrants from northern France to an aerodrome in Essex have been jailed.
Myrteza Hilaj, 50, and Kreshnik Kadena, 37, both of Leyton, east London, were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court in March of facilitating the commission of a breach of immigration law. The pair were sentenced to a combined total of five years and two months in prison, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
Their conviction followed an eightyear investigation by the agency, codenamed Operation Micropus, into an Albanian organised crime group involved in facilitating illegal migration, money laundering, drug trafficking and the supply of counterfeit documents.
The NCA said at least nine journeys of Albanian economic migrants in 2016 and 2017 were “linked back mainly to Hilaj” – three involving light aircraft and others with migrants getting in the back of lorries. Kadena acted as his assistant and was involved in smuggling migrants using the light aircraft.
The group’s pilot would take off from North Weald Airfield in Epping Forest, Essex, and fly to Le Touquet airport on the coast of northern France to collect three to four migrants to smuggle into the UK on each trip.
The pilot would then fly to Stapleford Aerodrome, also in Epping Forest, where the migrants would leave the plane and be collected by Kadena.
The Albanian migrants would pay “up to £10,000” for transit into the UK and then “a few hundred pounds extra” for fake documents, the NCA said.
Hilaj and Kadena were arrested on July 26 2017 at their home addresses by the NCA. British pilot David Green and facilitator Edward Buckley were jailed in France in 2017 for the light aircraft operation.
Saju Sasikumar, NCA senior investigating officer, said: “Operation Micropus has seen us uncover and dismantle an organised crime group who not only facilitated illegal migration, but provided a complete service to those they helped into the country.”