'Prolific' people smuggler who helped small boat migrants into UK jailed

A ‘prolific’ UK-based people smuggler who organised small boat crossings for children as young as five has been jailed for nine years.

It comes the day after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak got his plan to fly migrants to Rwanda through Parliament and just hours after five more people, including a four year old girl, died as they tried to cross the Channel.

Using the alias ‘John Brown’, Mustaf Cunaj was in constant contact with traffickers who smuggled migrants into the UK from northern France during the summer and autumn of 2022.

The 41-year-old Albanian national arranged at least 31 crossings – charging as much as £7,500 for the crossings of a woman and two young children, a court heard.

Messages about migrants not knowing ‘how to use lifejackets’ were also discovered on his phone.

Cunaj has now been jailed for nine years after admitting people smuggling offences.

Investigators from the National Crime Agency (NCA) said Cunaj had been operating as a ‘fixer’ for migrant crossings from Tolworth in southwest London in the summer and autumn of 2022.

Kingston Crown Court heard that he was in constant contact with people smugglers based in northern France throughout this period.

Cunaj used the alias ‘John Brown’ to contact migrants via WhatsApp and arrange crossings in small boats across the English Channel.

In studying messages on his phone, NCA investigators linked him to at least 31 crossings in a period of just five weeks.

In one conversation with another smuggler, he even arranged the crossing of a woman and children aged five and nine years old – bartering prices for their crossing from £8,000 down to £7,500.

Officers discovered Cunaj had shared in excess of 800 messages with this contact, who was part of a people smuggling network in northern France, between August and September 2022.

In another message to this contact, Cunaj referred to buying inflatable boats for between £4,000 and £4,500.

In another exchange about lifejackets, he told his contact: “I have five people…They don’t know how to wear a lifejacket as they are small children.”

Images sharing map locations in Calais and Dunkirk on the French coast were also found on his phone, whilst another shows two users’ locations as being in the English Channel and the North Sea.

Videos from the device showed a boat being launched from a beach and migrants wearing life jackets on a boat out at sea.

Cunaj was first arrested by NCA officers in October 2022, before being released under investigation.

He was later rearrested in September 2023 and charged with people smuggling offences which he initially denied, saying he merely put family members in contact with others if they were interested in coming to the UK.

However, Cunaj eventually admitted to conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration.

He has now finally been sentenced to nine years in prison.

The NCA said Cunaj was part of a network of UK-based fixers linked to Hewa Rahimpur, the head of a people smuggling network believed to be behind the smuggling of around 10,000 migrants to the UK.

Rahimpur was jailed for 11 years in Belgium last year, after being arrested by the NCA in London, where he directed his network from his home in Ilford in the east of the city.

Andy MacGill, a Senior Investigating Officer at the NCA, said Cunaj had shown ‘no regard’ for the people he was smuggling.

“Cunaj was prolific, swapping hundreds of messages in only two months with one people smuggler organising these dangerous crossings, and involved in the arrangement of many more,” he said.

“Entering the UK via small boat is extremely dangerous and evidence showed Cunaj had no regard for those he was smuggling, even arranging crossings for young children.

“The NCA is committed to tackling organised immigration crime as a priority and our work continues to stop people smugglers working both in the UK and overseas.”