Scores of Brits turning to people smuggling as criminal gangs set up £500-a-time missions
Mum-of-four is the latest to be locked up as worrying trend in ordinary Brits willing to traffic illegal immigrants rises
THE latest Brit to be convicted of people smuggling in France is a divorced mum of four desperate for cash for her son’s wedding.
Shabnam Zeeshan, 52, was recruited by a criminal gang and jailed for a year after being caught with two people hiding in her car boot at the Channel Tunnel in Calais.
She is part of a worrying increase in ordinary Brits willing to traffic illegal immigrants in from Europe in return for as little as £500.
Overwhelmed courts in northern France have been forced to hire extra staff to cope with cases, now running at more than one a day.
Zeeshan, of Bury, Gtr Manchester, is now locked up in the tough Chemin de la Plaine women’s prison near Lille.
She was caught after being approached by a gang based in the North West.
A court heard how the migrants she carried had paid gang masters £2,500 each to be taken to England.
Her lawyer Orsane Broisin told The Sun on Sunday: “She needed the money.
“She had debts of around £14,000 and wanted to pay something towards her son’s wedding. She was contacted by people who knew she was desperate. They told her it would be easy and she accepted.
“The gang paid for the rental of the car, she drove to France met them and was offered £500 per migrant.
“She took two and headed back to England but she was caught at the tunnel. She regrets what she did but she was desperate for the money.
“The gangs target desperate people. They don’t take the risks themselves.’’
A neighbour of Zeeshan, who lives with her kids in a rented £150,000 house, said it looked like she was running “an everyday family home” before her arrest.
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She is believed to have two grown-up sons plus one of 11 and a seven-year-old daughter.
The neighbour said: “I’ve seen her come and go. She moved in a few years ago. She introduced herself as Shabs and is perfectly friendly.
“I’m not sure the last time she was around. She didn’t seem to have a work routine.”
Zeeshan’s landlord Mohammed Iqbal said: “I can’t believe she’s been jailed, that’s a shock. Shabs moved in about two years ago and has never been any bother. I don’t know what she did for a job, I never asked. But there was never any problem with rent or late payments.”
The same day Zeeshan was stopped, two other people living in Britain were caught smuggling migrants.
Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor Pascal Marconville said: “The people traffickers are making a very big business.
“We have found individuals who are approached and are willing to take the risk and be paid by migrants and organised gangs.
“They see it is an easy way to make money, but if they are caught the consequences are very serious. We are dealing with so many cases that for this judicial year that has just started we are taking on an extra two prosecutors.”
One investigator revealed how smugglers are recruited, saying: “They home in on struggling shopkeepers, gamblers in bookmakers and casinos with serious debts or people at job centres.”
Other gangs target the Calais hypermarkets for desperate Brits on booze cruises.
Prosecutor Mr Marconville said: “On average, at least seven or eight people a week come before us, having been arrested at the Channel Tunnel or the ferry port in Calais.
“There are some British but we have also had Turks, Romanians and Albanians with British addresses.” The two men held on the same day as Zeeshan were Marin Florin Apopei, 24, from Queensbury, North London, and Cihan Tas from Chingford, Essex.
Tas had told his wife Vecide, 31, he was going to see a pal in France. She found out he had been arrested only when he rang.
The mum of two said: “We are trying to see him. I haven’t been allowed to speak to him. I think he’ll serve four months. There was only one person with my husband. He didn’t know he was in the car.”
FIGURES
88 prosecutions for bringing stowaways into UK in 2015-16, compared to 52 the year before
100 Brits jailed for brings to smuggle migrants through Calais in 2015, port prosecutors say
863k illegal immigrants in Britain, estimated by London School of Economics
Friends of Apopei said they had no idea he had been jailed for people smuggling in France. They said his family back in Romania were “worried sick”.
He had been working as a lorry driver in the UK for two years in Britain and rented a room in a four-bedroom house.
His housemate Marina Ancuta, 24, said: “This is a total shock but at least we know he’s alive now.
“His mobile was switched off and we didn’t know what had happened.”
A Border Force spokesman revealed the growing scale of the problem, saying: “Immigration enforcement have disrupted the activity of 185 crime groups involved in organised immigration crime in year to March 31.”
Earlier this year, former judo champion Robert Stillwell, of Greenhithe, Kent, was jailed for four years and four months and Mark Stripling, of Swanley, was given four months more, for trying to smuggle in Albanians.
Their boat capsized off Dymchurch in May when it ran out of fuel and had to be rescued by coastguards.
Investigators believe the pair were part of a wider organisation.
Ex Metropolitan Police border controls cop Chris Hobb said people trafficking was now proving as lucrative as drug smuggling.
He said: “Gangs tend to use ‘couriers’ only once or twice so it is difficult to prove they are part of a people-smuggling operation.
“The gangs always find the weak point. We only know where that is when they get caught. But we don’t how many people have been smuggled using that route.”