Eight members of an organised crime gang are facing jail after border officials found a Vietnamese woman crammed inside a car glovebox. A court heard how between 2022 and 2024 the gang smuggled people into the UK via land and air and also provided fake documents, made in a Greek forgery factory. Their crimes were uncovered following an investigation by the Home Office’s Criminal and Financial Investigation team.
In June 2022 Jozef Balong, from Manchester, was stopped at the UK border after travelling from France. During a search of his vehicle, Border Force officers discovered a Vietnamese woman concealed in a cramped compartment behind the dashboard. Balog pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in January 2024. A month later, in July 2022, Emily Etherington was stopped by Border Force officers after she was found hiding another woman in the dashboard of the vehicle. Etherington was arrested, while investigators also linked her husband Redar Curtis, to the offence.
The Home Office launched a wider investigation which revealed a sophisticated network of gang members engaged in people smuggling and document forgery. Seven search warrants were executed at various locations across the UK, resulting in the seizure of counterfeit documents, over 20,000 illicit cigarettes, and £6,000 in cash.
