Four men who tried to smuggle 69 people into the UK on a ‘squalid and dangerous’ boat have been jailed.
The gang, who stood to make more than £1million from a single trip, planned weekly crossings on a 30m-long Latvian trawler, the Svanic.
But the crew caught the attention of authorities, first off the coast of Sweden where the boat ran aground and later in the UK.
It was intercepted with 69 Albanian nationals on board – including two pregnant women.
The converted fishing boat was ‘chosen for the very reason she was cheap’, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Charlene Sumnall said the trawler, built almost 60 years ago, ‘had been sat rotting in a dry dock’.
She said the venture was ‘far more sophisticated than small boat crossings, dinghies and the like’ and that criminals were ‘using the squalid and dangerous conditions on board the Svanic to line their own pockets’.
Ms Sumnall said it was ‘not a voyage doomed to fail’, adding: ‘There were planned to be at least weekly trips, 50 people at a time.’
But the ‘clumsy crew’ drew attention on their maiden voyage from Ostend in Belgium to Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.
They ran aground off Sweden and were later intercepted by UK Border Force on November 17, 2020.
The boat, which had 20 lifejackets for 72 people, was escorted into Harwich in Essex. None of the passengers were injured.
Five men were convicted of conspiring to assist unlawful immigration, with Arturas Jusas, 35, admitting the offence, and four others found guilty after a trial.
Judge David Turner QC told them: ‘Your aim was gain and profit, you cared little for safety and welfare.’
Jusas, of Lambeth, south London, Kfir Ivgi, 39, of Finchley, north London, and Sergejs Kuliss, 32, of Newham, east London, were ‘UK- based organisers’.
Jusas was jailed for nine years and nine months, Ivgi for ten years and Kuliss for nine years.
Latvian Aleksandrs Gulpe, 44, got seven years and fellow crew member Ukrainian Igor Kosyi, 57, will be sentenced at a later date.
