Three men have been found guilty following a sting into a UK-based people smuggling gang - launched after a woman was found crammed inside a car glove box. Redar Curtis, 30, Jozef Kadet, 25, and Khales Akram Jabar, 44, were each found guilty of assisting unlawful immigration at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court this week.
The trio were arrested after a Home Office investigation and were found to have been part of an organised smuggling network hiding people in customised vehicles between 2022 and 2024. Dame Angela Eagle, minister for border security and asylum, said the case showed "the ruthless tactics of criminal gangs who smuggle people through Europe and into the UK".
"They have no regard for human life and exploit vulnerable individuals solely for profit, putting them in incredibly dangerous situations," she added. Be the first to get Breaking News. Install the Sky News app for free. The probe began after a Vietnamese woman was found hiding in a cramped compartment concealed behind the dashboard of a vehicle returning from France in June 2022.
Jozef Balog, who was driving the vehicle, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison last January after admitting a charge of assisting unlawful immigration. A month after the first smuggling attempt was caught, Curtis's wife Emily Etherington was stopped by Border Force officers after they found she was hiding another woman in the dashboard of her vehicle - prompting a Home Office investigation into the gang.
