Investigators have smashed an organised crime gang smuggling hundreds of illegal immigrants a year into the UK.

Twenty-one suspects were arrested in a wave of early morning raids across Cleveland in the North East, London and East Sussex.

The gang is believed to have charged immigrants up to €10,000 to be hidden in trucks and brought across the English Channel.

Most of the trafficked immigrants are Iraqi Kurds, mostly men but some families have also been brought into Britain.

Among those arrested were two men suspected of being organisers of the gang, which has been operating in France, Belgium and Holland.


Nineteen men, aged between 22 and 60, were held, and two women, aged 33 and 47.

Sixteen arrests were made in Cleveland, one in Northumberland, two in London and two in Hastings, East Sussex

More than 350 police officers were involved in the raids co-ordinated by the National Crime Agency after a year-long investigation.

Investigators were also raiding car wash premises thought to have been used for laundering cash from the smuggling operation.

They were also being checked by other agencies for potential immigration offences and health and safety breaches.

Many of the illegal immigrants are thought to have travelled through Turkey before crossing the Mediterranean Sea, a waterway thought to have been used by a million migrants in 2015, according to the NCA.

The north east gang is believed to have sent drivers to the continent to pick up the immigrants, often arranging to meet them in Belgium and Holland to avoid heavy policing at French ports such as Calais and Dunkirk.

Some immigrants are simply hidden under tarpaulins in the back of lorries, others are secreted inside empty tankers.

The gang is not suspected of using immigrants as slaves, poorly-paid workers or in the sex trade.

NCA Deputy Director Tom Dowdall said: "The number of officers deployed today by the National Crime Agency, the police and partner agencies reflects the scale and severity of the suspected criminality.

"It is one of the biggest operations of its kind undertaken by the NCA.

"We believe we have identified and disrupted a significant network which is suspected of smuggling hundreds of migrants into the UK and planned to carry on going.

"People smugglers don't think twice about putting lives in danger, employing a range of dangerous methods as they attempt to evade border controls.

"It is a crime predicated on exploitation of vulnerable people and their treatment as a commodity instead of as human beings.

"If anyone in the local community thinks they have information about linked criminality in the area we'd urge them to call the local police."