Gang who smuggled Vietnamese woman into Britain stuffed in glovebox of a Vauxhall Vectra are jailed
A people smuggling gang who crammed a Vietnamese woman into the glovebox of a Vauxhall Vectra in a bid to sneak her into Britain have been jailed after their sprawling criminal network was brought crashing down.
The woman was discovered curled up inside a secret compartment carved out of the dashboard in June 2022, sparking a major probe that eventually unmasked a ruthless trafficking operation stretching across Europe.
The gang, led by 43-year-old Kurdish-born barber Mukhlis Jamal Hamadamin from Stockport, used crudely adapted vehicles to ferry illegal immigrants into the UK.
Border officers later also uncovered forged identity documents, £6,000 in cash and 20,000 illicit cigarettes.
Hamadamin, a UK citizen who smuggled himself into Britain in the back of a lorry in 2002, ran the operation even after being arrested and charged by courts in Spain.
He and seven accomplices were sentenced for their roles in the conspiracy, which ran between June 2022 and February 2024.
Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court heard how Hamadamin oversaw a network that helped migrants, mainly from Iraq and Vietnam, travel into the EU on fake documents before reaching Britain via routes through Malaga, Dublin and Belfast.
Prosecutor Dan Calder said Hamadamin's gang created and supplied false EU identity papers and passports, meeting clients in a Malaga EasyHotel before sending them to the UK where they would submit asylum claims.
One of the most shocking moments of the case came when a Vauxhall Vectra driven by gang member Josef Kadet, 25, from Hungary, was stopped in Dover.
Border Force officers found a woman hidden in a custom-built compartment beneath the dashboard.
A vehicle examiner said the airbag, heating and air con had been ripped out and fuses and wiring shifted to make room for the woman, with the entire job taking up to 12 weeks to build.
'The dangerousness of these modifications perhaps need no explanation,' said Mr Calder, calling the adaptations 'highly dangerous' and warning they could cause injury or death in a crash.
Following the discovery, Hamadamin recruited Redar Curtis and his wife Emily Etherington into the gang.
The couple, from Kennington, stooped to using a child as a 'human shield' by placing them in the front passenger seat while smuggling an illegal immigrant from France, the court heard.
Phone messages later revealed Curtis had told his wife 'don't stop' until she returned home with the smuggled person, warning they wouldn't be paid otherwise.
In another case, a third Vauxhall Vectra was intercepted in Dover in August 2022 with yet another hidden passenger.
This time, the driver was gang member Dlawar Omar. With border pressure increasing, the group shifted tactics.
Instead of stuffing people into vehicles, they began producing fake EU documents to help individuals fly from Spain to Dublin and into Britain via Northern Ireland.
Mr Calder said Hamadamin personally aided at least 14 people to enter the country illegally in this way.
His financial records revealed an £18,000 cash deposit into his account during the conspiracy.
Another gang member, Khales Akram Jabar, was paid £1,750 to fly alongside two Iraqi women using fake documents.
Prosecutors accepted that one of the women may have been his wife. At court, Hamadamin's lawyer Henry Blackshaw claimed his client's role was 'modest' in comparison to the wider problem of people trafficking.
He described the Vauxhalls as 'crudely modified' and presented a letter from Hamadamin's daughter who said her father was a 'role model' to her.
Mr Blackshaw said his client had originally fled Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, arriving in Britain hidden in a lorry before working at a car wash in Trafford and later in barbershops where he became involved in people trafficking.
Judge Jonathan Seely told the gang: 'This was a cynical, highly organised conspiracy to exploit illegal immigrants, and expose them to death and or horrific injury for financial gain, for greed.'
He said the adapted Vectras were 'quite literally a death trap' for those being smuggled.
Mukhlis Jamal Hamadamin, 43, pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration to the United Kingdom, one count of conspiracy to make an article for use in a fraud and one count of possession of an identity document with improper intention. He was jailed for 13 years.
His brother, Muhamad Jamal Hamadamin, 27, admitted two counts of fraud and one count of possessing an identity document with improper intention and was sentenced to 18 months.
Yassen Jalal Mohammed, 43, admitted three counts of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and received a 38-month prison term.
Dlawar Omar, 40, was sentenced to three years and one month after pleading guilty to the same offence.
Emily Etherington, 37, admitted her role and was handed a two-year suspended sentence and ordered to complete 25 rehabilitation activity requirement days.
Her husband, Redar Curtis, 30, was found guilty after trial and jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Josef Kadet, 25, was jailed for four years and two months and Khales Akram Jabar, 44, was jailed for two years.
Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Dame Angela Eagle, said: 'This case shows the ruthless tactics of criminal gangs who smuggle people through Europe and into the UK.
'They have no regard for human life and exploit vulnerable individuals solely for profit, putting them in incredibly dangerous situations.
'Our investigators have worked tirelessly to track down this gang, gather critical evidence and bring them to justice. Our investigators' efforts mean that this gang's operations have been dismantled, their profits slashed, and we are delivering on this government's Plan for Change: to protect our borders, disrupt people-smuggling networks, and end the exploitation of vulnerable individuals.
'Our new Border Security Command, supported by £150 million in funding, is vital to this mission. It allows us to target these networks wherever they operate, undermine their profits, break their business models—all while reinforcing the security of our borders.'
Home Office Immigration Enforcement, Chief Immigration Officer Paul Moran added: 'Today's convictions are the result of a complex investigation into organised crime that stretched across Europe and took over two years of hard work by our Criminal and Financial Investigation teams in Dover and Manchester.
'Our team worked closely with the Spanish National Police, Greek Police, and Irish Garda Síochána to break up this criminal group, which was illegally smuggling non-EU nationals into the UK.
'This group put profit ahead of people's safety, facilitating them through dangerous methods in vehicles and by air, showing no concern for the well-being of those they smuggled. We are committed to stopping dangerous criminal networks and protecting our borders.
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