Overview

• Seven members of the network received a combined 69 years and four months in prison on July 17, with ringleader Azize Benaniba handed 12 years and 11 months.
• The National Crime Agency opened its investigation after French border police found 58 migrants hidden in a refrigerated lorry at Calais on February 21, 2023.
• Surveillance teams intercepted more than 20 reverse Channel runs between February and October 2023, rescuing migrants and arresting complicit drivers on routes from Dover to Calais.
• Migrants from French-speaking North African countries, including children as young as five, were brought to the UK on tourist visas, charged up to £1,200 and crammed into sealed refrigerated and unrefrigerated trailers.
• Coordinated dawn raids in North London on March 20, 2024, dismantled the gang’s leadership and underscored the NCA’s ongoing priority to tackle organised immigration crime.