Police crush gang that smuggled people and used Facebook to advertise illegal immigration packages

Police have busted a criminal gang who used Facebook to advertise illegal immigration packages worth £15,000 each to Britain for thousands of Vietnamese migrants.

The gang’s ‘VIP service’ included plane tickets to Europe, fake visas, stays in a Paris hotel, taxis to Calais and finally a place on a small boat crossing the Channel.

Discounts were offered to those who agreed to drug trafficking or spend time as a prostitute. The shocking details emerged after five members of the network were jailed in France last week.

They were found guilty of multiple human trafficking offences, but their leader, 25-year-old Vietnamese Nguyen Van Tim, is still at large and is on the most wanted list in Europe.

Tim concentrated his activities on Paris, where migrants arrived and were then taken in a fleet of Mercedes taxis to the Channel coast.

A tip to police on January 25 reported that two Mercedes passenger cars had left the hotel center with Vietnamese nationals on board

The gang is suspected of being behind a huge increase in Vietnamese migrants crossing the Channel in small boats. Official statistics for the first quarter of this year showed that 1,060 Vietnamese reached the UK in small boats – the highest number of any country. The number of Vietnamese crossing the Channel in the first three months of this year was almost as high as in the whole of 2023, and twice as high as in the whole of 2022.

“Most customers originally heard about the service through Facebook and were subsequently given plane tickets and fake visas to travel to Paris,” a source conducting the investigation told the MoS last night.

‘They invested their entire savings in parcels worth between €15,000 (£12,800) and €18,000 (£15,400), but could get a discount on them if they smuggled methamphetamine for drugs gangs.

‘Women also received discounts if they worked as prostitutes, while others were put to work in nail salons or supermarkets for next to nothing.’

Thousands of Vietnamese contacted the gang after first reading about their offers on Facebook, the source said.

The Hotel du Centre, in the Kremlin-Bicêtre in the south of Paris, was used to house new arrivals.

The court heard the Uber app was used to call a ride-hailing service to take the gang’s customers to Calais bus station.

On January 25, police received a tip that two Mercedes minibuses had left the hotel center with Vietnamese nationals on board.

The budget hotel was then placed under surveillance and of the 47 Vietnamese identified by detectives who left the hotel in the following days, 32 managed to reach Britain.

The operation initially led to the questioning of 54 taxi drivers in the French capital, but they were all acquitted after claiming they did not know they were transporting migrants.

Yesterday, the Hotel du Centre was inexplicably closed, but a sign indicated it would reopen in mid-September. Pictured: one of the hotel rooms

The budget hotel was then placed under surveillance and of the 47 Vietnamese identified by investigators who left the hotel in the following days, 32 reached Britain. Pictured: one of the hotel rooms

Once in Calais, the Vietnamese were handed over to Iraqi Kurdish gangs, who took them to Britain on inflatable boats.

On April 22 this year, police raided a total of 12 locations in France and four in the UK, all linked to Van Tim’s gang.

A total of 16 people were arrested, four of them in Britain: in Deptford, Croydon and Leicester.

One of those arrested, a 64-year-old Vietnamese, is believed to have acted as a driver, picking up migrants arriving in small boats and taking them back to his home in Croydon on at least one occasion.

Drugs and around a quarter of a million pounds in cash were seized during the coordinated raids.

Investigators accused the gang of advertising social media posts targeting the Vietnamese community on Facebook.

Chris Farrimond of the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said: ‘Vietnamese now make up a large proportion of the people we see arriving in small boats.

‘We allege that this group promoted their crossing services on social media to encourage others from their country to make the same dangerous journey.

‘The NCA continues to work with partners and has removed thousands of pages and social media posts promoting organised immigration crime from its platforms.’

Tim is now the subject of a European Arrest Warrant and is believed to be somewhere in Germany.

Last week he was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison by the Dunkirk criminal court.

Tim’s chief lieutenant was Ho Van Ding, 44, who oversaw the accommodation and departure to the coast. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

Pham Duc Loc, 20, was jailed for three years after telling the court it was “cheaper and more convenient” for migrants to use taxis instead of trains.

Nguyen The Vuong, who handled the logistics, was sentenced to two years in prison, while a woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was given a one-year suspended sentence.

Yesterday, the Hotel du Centre was inexplicably closed, but a sign indicated it would reopen in mid-September. The registered owner, Francoise Suau, did not respond to requests for comment.