People smuggler hid five migrants in tent he put up in his car
A ROMANIAN people trafficker who hid five Vietnamese teenagers inside a tent in the back of his car has been jailed for four years.
Claudiu Pricope, 29, hoped to fool border guards by erecting the two- man tent in his people carrier and packing bags of clothes around it as he drove through the Channel Tunnel.
His brazen plan was exposed by Border Force officers at the UK checkpoint in Coquelles, France on November 4.
When questioned about what was in the back of his silver Seat Alhambra, Pricope was vague, claiming he didn’t know where he was taking the clothes nor who they were for.
On opening a rear side door, officers found a stack of bags packed tightly in the rear of the vehicle.
But when they began to remove them, they discovered a blue tent squashed into the space where the rear passenger seats should have been. Inside, five teenagers were found crouching in cramped and unbearably hot conditions.
Paul Morgan, from Border Force South East and Europe, said: ‘All five of the teenagers were drenched in sweat, but smugglers care little about the conditions in which they transport their human cargo, often putting the lives of others at risk.’
Officers rescued two boys and three girls zipped in the tent and they were detained by French border police.
Police believe Pricope had no address in Britain and was planning to dump his passengers and then return to Europe to collect more.
Photos on a Facebook profile, which appears to belong to Pricope, show him posing at European airports and in front of lorries at motorway service stations. There are also pictures of him relaxing at the beach and showing off a series of motorbikes and sports cars that he appears to have bought despite claiming to be a factory worker in Romania.
On Facebook, Pricope claims to live in Urziceni, a Romanian town near Bucharest. But his pictures reveal he has travelled around Europe to other countries including Germany, raising Brazen: Claudiu Pricope, right, hid his suspicions he may have been involved in a wider trafficking gang. On Monday he pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration into the UK at Canterbury Crown Court in Kent. He was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.
David Fairclough, from the Home Office immigration enforcement
‘Drenched in sweat’
team, said: ‘ Pricope misguidedly believed that zipping the people into a tent would defeat Border Force, but all it achieved was to subject them to uncomfortable conditions.
‘This case should serve as a warning to anyone tempted to get involved with this kind of offending. We will catch you, and put you before the courts.’