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A taxi driver picked up migrants smuggled into the UK in lorries and drove them across the UK as part of a huge crooked operation.

Habib Behsodi and other members of the people smuggling gang referred to illegal immigrants as “pork”. A court heard Behsodi collected Vietnamese nationals as soon as they arrived in the UK in HGVs and drove them in his taxi to addresses in the West Midlands.

Hai Xuan Le, 25, orchestrated multiple operations from his flat in Handsworth, Birmingham.

But both men were found guilty of conspiring to facilitate unlawful immigration after a six-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court. They’ll be sentenced next year.

A third man, Karzan Mohammed, aged 33 of Bolton, Greater Manchester, was cleared. 

National Crime Agency (NCA) stated the operation risked the lives of those they transported, sometimes in the back of refrigerated lorries, reports Birmingham Live.

There were at least seven separate attempts to move migrants between August 19 and September 4, 2020. Le, himself a Vietnamese national, was part of a wider network of people smugglers transporting his fellow countrymen to the UK.

The NCA stated some of those who got into the country relied on a ‘debt bondage’ to fund the journey which they would have to pay back through working in criminal enterprises such as cannabis farms. Le operated out of his flat in Grove Lane, Handsworth.

He used multiple phone numbers, social media accounts and pseudonyms to arrange for people to be transported to pick-up points in Europe and loaded into HGVs in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The lorries, some of which were refrigerated, would cross by Ferry or the Channel Tunnel to Kent where those inside would be collected.

Behsodi would collect cash payments as well as drive migrants back to the West Midlands. Occasionally Le would also travel down to Kent to accompany them, sometimes using genuine or unwitting taxi companies to return to the region.

Le was arrested from his flat in September 2021. He initially gave the name Ho Sy Quoc but the NCA worked with authorities in Vietnam to establish his true identity.

Mick Pope, branch commander at the NCA said: “These two men were part of a people smuggling network who were not just breaching UK border security but also risking the lives of those they transported. One text message exchange we recovered as part of this investigation shows migrants being referred to as ‘pork’ – which I think shows the callous nature of those involved.

“For them, the people they were transporting were a just a commodity from which they could profit. We have seen how this kind of criminality can so easily lead to loss of life, which is why we are doing all we can to target and dismantle the criminal networks involved.”

Russel Tyner, from the Crown Prosecution Service, added: “The defendants in this case went to a lot of effort to conceal their involvement in smuggling people into the UK. All this was designed to avoid the checks and controls we have on immigration at our borders.

“The CPS is committed to working with law enforcement to identify and prosecute those that exploit and profit from people smuggling. Significant sums of money were made from this exploitation and the CPS will seek to pursue any money that has been made through the Proceeds of Crime Act.”

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