Police smash trafficking gang who offered unlawful immigration packages

Police have snared a criminal gang which used Facebook to advertise £15,000-a-head illegal immigration packages to Britain for thousands of Vietnamese migrants.

The gang’s ‘VIP service’ included air tickets to Europe, fake visas, stays in a Paris hotel, taxis to Calais, and finally a place on a small boat crossing the English Channel.

Discounts were offered for those who agreed to smuggle drugs, or to spend time working as prostitutes. The shocking details emerged after five members of the network were given jail sentences in France last week.

They were found guilty of multiple people smuggling offences but the ringleader – a Vietnamese national called Nguyen Van Tim, 25 – remains on the run, and is on Europe’s most-wanted list.

Van Tim centred his racket on Paris, where migrants arrived before being taken to the English Channel coast in a fleet of Mercedes taxis.

The Hotel du Centre, at Kremlin-Bicêtre, in south Paris, was used to house new arrivals

A tip-off to police on January 25 said that two Mercedes people carriers had left the Hotel Centre with Vietnamese on board

The gang is suspected to be responsible for a huge rise in Vietnamese migrants crossing the Channel in small boats. Official statistics for the first quarter of this year show 1,060 Vietnamese reached the UK in small boats – the highest of any country. The number of Vietnamese who crossed the Channel in the first three months of this year was almost as many as crossed in the whole of 2023, and twice as many as the entirety of 2022.

‘Most clients originally learned about the service through Facebook, and were then given the air tickets and fake visas to get to Paris,’ an investigating source told the MoS last night.

‘They poured their life savings into packages costing between €15000 (£12800) and €18000 (£15,400), but could get money off if they smuggled methamphetamine for drug gangs.

‘Women were also given the opportunity of a discount if they worked as prostitutes, while others were put to work for hardly any money at all in nail bars or grocery stores.’

Thousands of Vietnamese contacted the gang, after initially reading about their offers on Facebook, said the source.

The Hotel du Centre, at Kremlin-Bicêtre, in south Paris, was used to house new arrivals.

The Uber app was used to call people carriers to take the gang’s clients to Calais coach station, the court heard.

A tip-off to police on January 25 said that two Mercedes people carriers had left the Hotel Centre with Vietnamese on board.

The budget hotel was then placed under surveillance, and out of 47 Vietnamese identified by investigators leaving the hotel over the next few days, 32 made it to Britain.

The operation originally led to 54 taxi drivers in the French capital being questioned, but all were later cleared after claiming they did not know they were transporting migrants.

Yesterday, the Hotel du Centre was shut for unexplained reasons, but a sign said it would reopen in mid September. Pictured: one of the hotel’s rooms

The budget hotel was then placed under surveillance, and out of 47 Vietnamese identified by investigators leaving the hotel over the next few days, 32 made it to Britain. Pictured: one of the hotel’s rooms

Once in Calais, the Vietnamese were placed in the hands of Iraqi-Kurdish gangs, who placed them on inflatable boats to Britain.

On April 22 this year, police swooped on a total of 12 locations in France and four in the UK, all of which were connected to Van Tim’s racket.

There were 16 arrests in total, including four in Britain – in Deptford, Croydon and Leicester.

One of those taken into custody, a 64-year-old Vietnamese man, is said to have acted as a driver, collecting migrants who arrived on small boats and on at least one occasion bringing them back to his home in Croydon.

Drugs and around a quarter-of-a-million-pounds worth of cash was confiscated during the coordinated raids.

Investigators accused the gang of advertising on social media posts aimed at the Vietnamese community on Facebook.

Chris Farrimond, of Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said: ‘Vietnamese nationals now make up a large number of those we see arriving on small boats.

‘We allege this group were advertising their crossing services on social media to encourage others from their country to make the same treacherous journey.

‘The NCA is continuing our work with partners and has had thousands of social media pages and posts advertising organised immigration crime services removed from platforms.’

Van Tim is now the subject of a European Arrest Warrant, and is thought to be somewhere in Germany.

He was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison at Dunkirk Criminal Court last week.

Van Tim’s main lieutenant was Ho Van Ding, 44, who supervised accommodation and departures to the coast. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

Pham Duc Loc, 20, got three years, after telling the court that it was ‘cheaper and more comfortable’ for migrants to use taxis rather than trains.

Nguyen The Vuong, who provided logistics, was sentenced to two years in prison, while a woman who cannot be named for legal reasons got a one-year suspended sentence.

Yesterday, the Hotel du Centre was shut for unexplained reasons, but a sign said it would reopen in mid September. Its registered owner, Francoise Suau, did not return calls for comment.