Man jailed for three years for illegally helping asylum seekers enter the UK

A MAN made thousands of pounds by illegally helping Iranian asylum seekers enter the UK using false documents.

Mehdi Mahmoodi-Esfanjani helped at least two women enter the country, with one woman settling in the Roath area of Cardiff.

A South Wales Police spokesman said the 39-year-old made “thousands of pounds in the process”.

Yesterday Mahmoodi-Esfanjani, from Birmingham, was jailed for three years at Newport Crown Court.

He was arrested last September following a joint investigation into organised immigration crime conducted by Tarian – the regional organised crime unit for the south Wales region – and UK Border Force.

At an earlier hearing at Cardiff Crown Court, Mahmoodi-Esfanjani pleaded guilty to two counts of helping an asylum seeker to enter the UK and one count of money laundering.

As well as the three-year jail term Mahmoodi-Esfanjani was made subject to a Serious Crime Prevention Order, which will place stringent conditions upon him for five years following his release from prison.

Speaking after the case Detective Constable Emma Banks, of Tarian, said: “This collaborative approach is making it harder for criminal networks to cross our borders and, as this sentence demonstrates, when those involved in this type of criminality are caught the consequences are considerable.”