PARIS: A gang of French fishermen have been jailed for five years for smuggling 130 Albanians into the UK via beaches near Plymouth.
A trial in Rennes, in Brittany, heard how the fishermen from Paimpol, preyed on ‘human misery’ and ‘desperation’.
French prosecutor Anne Fourmel said Britain was seen as the ‘Eldorado’ for hundreds of desperate illegal immigrants and these fishermen were attracted by ‘easy missions and easy money’.
Mrs Fournel said: “This was the trial of the exploitation of human misery as desperate people are prepared to pay colossal sums of money to leave their country to find their Eldorado in Great Britain.”
The procureure de la République (French procurator) asked that all fishermen involved in the clandestine human smuggling operations each pay a £360 fine per illegal immigrant ferried across the Channel.
Mrs Fournel asked that Albanian national Edmond Rapi, the mastermind behind the human trafficking ring, serve seven years in prison and pay a £110,000 fine.
However as Mr Rapi was judged in absentia, an international warrant has now been issued for his arrest. Each of the five ringleaders, including a businessman from Brittany were all sentenced to five years in prison.
Between January 2002 and January 2003 the fishermen carried out 16 trips in sail boats and motor boats between ports in Brittany and Normandy and dropped off their passengers in coves and on beaches along the coastline between Weymouth, Plymouth and South East Cornwall.
Most of the defendants are from the Breton port of Paimpol and skippered their own boats, the prosecutor said.
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