Habib Behsodi ferried illegal migrants to the West Midlands in return for cash payments and he has been told to pay back the cash or face time in jail
Habib Behsodi(Image: NCA )
A taxi driver who was part of a people smuggling gang who took illegal migrants to the West Midlands has been told to pay up or face a lengthy jail term.
Habib Behsodi aged 44 from Chatham in Kent, worked with Hai Xuan Le from Grove Road in Handsworth in Birmingham to pick up migrants who hailed from Vietnam and came into the country in the backs of lorries
Le would arrange for people to be transported to pre-arranged pick-up points in Europe and loaded onto HGVs in France, Belgium or the Netherlands to come the UK.
Once here Behsodi would drive them to the West Midlands in return for cash payments.
Read more: Brum trafficker helped smuggle Vietnamese migrants dubbed ‘pork’ into UK
Both Le and Behsodi were arrested in September 2021 and following a six-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court, both men were found guilty of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration in December 2022.
Le was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison. Behsodi was given a 20-month jail sentence suspended for two years at a hearing on 21 February.
Jailed: Hai Xuan Le(Image: NCA)
Following his conviction National Crime Agency (NCA) financial investigators began work to identify assets that could be proceeds of crime.
Now Behsodi has been told to pay back £100,000 from his illicit gains, at a hearing last Friday (June 27).
If he does not he will face 12 months behind bars. He has three months to hand over the money.
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NCA senior investigating officer Paul Boniface said: “Behsodi made this money from his criminality, so it is only right that he should not be able to benefit from it.
“He played an important part in a people smuggling enterprise which saw migrants treated as a commodity to be profited from, transporting them from Vietnam to the UK.
“This case demonstrates that not only will we investigate and bring to justice those involved in organised immigration crime, we will also follow the money and stop criminals profiting from their wrongdoing.”