Couple jailed for using plane to smuggle migrants from France to Essex

Two Albanian nationals who used a plane to illegally transport migrant workers from northern France to Essex airport have been jailed.

Myrteza Hilaj, 50, and Kreshnik Kadena, 37, both from Leyton, east London, were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court in March of facilitating a breach of immigration law.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said they were both sentenced to a total of five years and two months in prison.

Their conviction followed an eight-year investigation by the agency codenamed Operation Micropus into an Albanian organized crime group involved in facilitating illegal migration, money laundering, drug trafficking and providing false documents.

The national competition authority found that at least nine trips by Albanian migrant workers in 2016 and 2017 were “mainly linked to Hilaj” – three involving light aircraft and others involving migrants boarding the back of trucks.

Kadena served as his assistant and was primarily involved in smuggling migrants by light planes.

The group’s pilot was to take off from North Weald Airport in Epping Forest, Essex, and fly to Le Touquet Airport on the coast of northern France to pick up three to four migrants on each trip to be smuggled into the UK.

The pilot then flew to Stapleford Airport, also in Epping Forest, where the migrants disembarked the plane and were picked up by Kadena.

Albanian migrants will pay “up to £10,000” for transit to the UK and then “several hundred pounds more” for false documents, the NCA said.

After being intercepted by police in France on 17 July 2017, the national competent authority found that Hilaj and Kadena, both legally resident in the UK, were seen attending a “debriefing meeting in a local pub”. During the trial, Kadena suggested that these were his “birthday drinks” instead.

Hilaj, who came to the UK in the 1990s and previously worked as a restaurant owner and security guard, provided false documents to migrants.

The identity fraud group provided many of them to Hilaj – including five people who presented “tens of thousands” of such documents at a Stratford branch to use in bank fraud.

He also obtained documents from a man who ran a passport factory out of his loft in Battersea, London.

Hilaj and Kadena were arrested by the NCA on July 26, 2017 at their home addresses.

Officers discovered messages on one of Hilaj’s phones in which he corrected spelling errors in false documents, as well as internet searches regarding the July 17 flight ban.

British pilot David Green and coordinator Edward Buckley were convicted in France in 2017 for light aircraft operations that lasted from June to July 2017.

The operation carried out by the national competition authority involved a total of 27 arrests, including 11 convictions in the UK and nine convictions abroad.

The national competition authority said the operation that led to the men’s arrests provided “protection to over 50 migrants” who were prevented from entering the UK by unsafe means.

It also involved the closure of four counterfeit factories and the issuing of confiscation orders worth just under £1 million.

A wider investigation by the national competition authority, not directly related to Hilaj or Kadena, included the seizure of four tonnes of cannabis and 30 kilograms of cocaine.

The National Competition Authority’s senior investigating officer, Saju Sasikumar, said: “In Operation Micropus, we uncovered and dismantled an organized criminal group that was not only facilitating illegal migration, but was providing a comprehensive service to those it helped enter the country, ensuring they could enter the country illegally. getting a job and accessing services.” .

“This shows our determination to pursue all those involved in people smuggling who risk the lives of others in the pursuit of profit.”