National Crime Agency
Wednesday 22 Feb 2023

NCA investigation brings down UK arm of Vietnamese people smuggling network

NCA investigation brings down UK arm of Vietnamese people smuggling network
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A key figure in a major people smuggling network bringing Vietnamese migrants to the UK in the backs of lorries has been jailed, following a National Crime Agency investigation.

Hai Xuan Le, 33, himself a Vietnamese national, orchestrated a series of crossings in August and September 2020 from his flat in Handsworth, Birmingham.

Phone evidence produced by the NCA showed that Le was the UK lynchpin of a wider global network of people smugglers, transporting people illegally from Vietnam to the UK. In messages recovered by the NCA, members of the network referred to migrants as “pork” and “chickens”.

Using a range of different phone numbers, social media accounts and pseudonyms, Le would arrange for people to be transported to pre-arranged pick up points in Europe and loaded onto HGVs in France, Belgium or the Netherlands, using a complicit transport network.