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| People-smuggling leader is jailed | People-smuggling leader is jailed |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| A ringleader of one of Europe's biggest people-smuggling operations has been jailed for eight and a half years. | A ringleader of one of Europe's biggest people-smuggling operations has been jailed for eight and a half years. |
| Turkish national Ramazan Zorlu, 43, had earlier admitted his part in the trafficking network. | Turkish national Ramazan Zorlu, 43, had earlier admitted his part in the trafficking network. |
| Zorlu was arrested alongside Ali Riza Gun, 47, in raids in London last year. Gun will be sentenced at a later date. | |
| Scotland Yard described the operation, involving several law enforcement agencies in Europe, as its biggest investigation into human smuggling. | Scotland Yard described the operation, involving several law enforcement agencies in Europe, as its biggest investigation into human smuggling. |
| A judge at Croydon Crown Court said Zorlu should be deported once he finished serving his sentence. | |
| The smuggling network, which was run by Zorlu, Gun and another Turkish national, Hassan Eroglu, ran into millions of pounds, Det Ch Supt Maxine de Brunner said. | |
| Eroglu, 47, was sentenced to six years' imprisonment at an earlier hearing. | |
| 'Deplorable conditions' | |
| Sentencing Zorlu, Judge Nicholas Ainley told the court: "I find it hard to conceive of a more serious case of this type of offence coming before the courts." | |
| The illegal immigrants brought into the UK were mostly from Turkey, and some from Iraq. | |
| Police swooped in addresses in London | |
| Prosecutor Richard Whittam QC told the court that people were transported on "planes, trains, lorries and cars" to evade customs and in "deplorable conditions". | |
| He said in one case four young children in a van were found gasping for breath by French border police. | |
| Quite often a cramped secret metal compartment welded to the underside of one of the lorries, in which "customers" were transported. | |
| "There is a significance in trying to put the compartment as low as possible ... to try to avoid police techniques designed to find evidence of breathing and heartbeats," he said. | |
| The operation involved investigations across 21 European countries and the UK and more than 60 arrests linked to the ring have been made across Europe, police said. |