A pair of people smugglers who arranged the transport of Vietnamese migrants to the UK hidden in lorries have been convicted.

National Crime Agency officers investigated Duc Quang Ta, 36, from Reading, and Sarfaraz Sardarzehi, 58, from London, after both were arrested following vehicle stops in September 2020, with three migrants discovered in Sardarzehi’s car.

The crime group the pair belonged to hid migrants in the backs of lorries which travelled to the UK via ferries or the Channel Tunnel. Once in the UK, the migrants were quickly transferred by car away from the south coast, reducing the risk of being caught by Border Force officers.

Vietnamese national Ta was found to be involved in the transport, or attempted transport, of migrants on 16 occasions between 18 August and 6 September 2020, with Sardarzehi assisting with three of these attempts. A total of 22 people were successfully smuggled into the UK during this timeframe, although the offending period is suspected of being much wider.

Ta had more of an organiser role, while Sardarzehi was a ‘taxi driver’, moving migrants once they were in the UK and also cash for the group.

The group communicated over encrypted social media apps and used slang when discussing their criminality, in an effort to remain undetected. Migrants were referred to as ‘siblings’, ‘chicken’, ‘pork’ or ‘things’, police as ‘dogs’, refrigerated trucks as ‘fridges’, ferries as going by ‘water’, money as ‘paper’ and vehicles as ‘horses’.

Ta was the front seat passenger in a BMW X5 stopped by Surrey Police and Thames Valley Police on the M25 near Leatherhead in Surrey on 3 September 2020.

He was arrested as an illegal immigrant, with police also finding £55,020 in cash which had been stuffed inside a plastic bag in the rear passenger footwell, and a further £1,000 in Ta’s pocket.

They also seized a phone, which was later forensically examined and showed messages from Ta about £56,000 in cash a few hours before his arrest. These showed that he was heading to Kent to hand the money to co-conspirators who had arranged for a number of migrants to be smuggled into the UK in the back of an HGV.

It appears that the plan had been for the immigrants to be delivered to Gillingham where they would then be taken away to safe houses elsewhere in the UK in cars.

The following day, Sardarzehi was stopped by West Midlands Police officers in Birmingham. He was driving a silver Vauxhall Corsa and the men with him were believed to be the ones that Ta had been on his way to pay money for. After being stopped, Sardarzehi claimed that he had just picked them up as they wanted a lift, although later admitted in interview that he knew they were migrants.

Sardarzehi was re-arrested by NCA officers in June 2022 and the NCA investigation showed that the criminal network he and Ta were part of spanned from Europe, into South East England and up into the Midlands.

The migrants paid significant amounts of money for the crossings, and were kept in safe houses, mostly in Belgium, until space became available for them in the back of a lorry.

Ta worked with the wider crime group to match would be immigrants with slots in lorries which were about to cross from Europe to the UK. He acted like an agent or operations manager, organising drivers, lorries, safe houses and immigrants.

Ta and Sardarzehi were found guilty of people smuggling and money laundering charges by a jury at Birmingham Crown Court today (Monday 23 February) following a three-week trial. Both men have been bailed to appear at the same court for sentencing on 10 July.

NCA senior investigating officer David Cushway said: “Ta and Sardarzehi were part of an organised immigration crime group that exploited migrants at every step of their dangerous journeys to the UK, all for the sake of profit.

“They placed these people at enormous risk by putting them in HGVs, with the language they used to describe them indicative of the disdain they held them in.

“Cases like these harden the National Crime Agency’s resolve to bring individuals like Ta and Sardarzehi before the courts and disrupt the organised crime groups behind this evil
trade.”

The NCA is currently leading approximately 100 ongoing investigations into networks or individuals in the top tier of organised immigration crime or human trafficking, those inflicting the highest harm, and who are the most difficult to reach. Some of these sit right at the top of the NCA’s priority list.

The NCA targets and disrupts organised crime groups at every step of the route, in source countries, in transit countries, near the UK border in France and Belgium, and those operating inside the UK itself.