AN ALLEGED ringleader of a people smuggling gang, who is from Bradford, "remains at large" despite six members being jailed.
Goran Jalal, 37, is suspected of organising the transporting of migrants into the UK in the back of a refrigerated lorry through Portsmouth port.
Six members of the criminal network were sentenced to a total of 26 years behind bars for their part in the people smuggling.
Five of the men were found guilty of offences on March 14 after a four-week trial at Bournemouth Crown Court.
Marinel Danut Palage, 31, a Romanian lorry driver who is a national resident in Zaragoza, Spain, was sentenced to nine years in prison on April 13 for conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration.
Pshtewan Ghafour, aged 37, from Middlesbrough, was jailed for five years for the same offence.
Jamal Walid Saied, 38, from Manchester, Mariwan Tofiq Mustafa, 33, from Halifax, and Hemin Ali Salih, 37, from Manchester were found guilty of facilitating illegal immigration.
They were handed sentences of three years, two-and-a half-years, and two years respectively today.
But Salih absconded before the start of the trial and was convicted and sentenced in his absence.
A warrant has been issued for his arrest.
The sixth man, Kamaran Kader, aged 44, from Bradford, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years on April 20.
Jalal was arrested by National Crime Agency (NCA) officers in March 2019 as part of an operation tackling the smuggling but he later absconded from bail.
A warrant has also been issued for his arrest.
Both Jalal and Salih are wanted by the NCA and it has issued an appeal
National Crime Agency (NCA) officers have issued an appeal for their whereabouts following today's sentencing of three members of the crime group.
Palage was key to the plot, carrying out migrant runs for the network in his truck, using crossings from Normandy into Portsmouth.
Kader and Ghafour acted alongside Jalal and worked with Palage to organise crossings.
The gang were arrested in an NCA operation in March 2019, when surveillance officers followed them to a handover meeting on an industrial estate in Runcton, West Sussex.
At least three migrants travelled in Palage’s lorry on a ferry from Caen in France, before being collected by cars driven by other gang members.
In one of the cars was Kader and Jalal.
Both men were arrested by NCA officers at a service station on the A3 as they drove away from the area.
They had earlier handed over two migrants to other gang members.
Phone evidence showed that Ghafour had also travelled down to Portsmouth on the same night, while both his and Kader’s fingerprints were found on bags and envelopes of cash that NCA officers found in Palage’s lorry.
NCA Branch Commander Richard Harrison said: “They were happy to put vulnerable migrants into the backs of lorries for long Channel sea crossings, and I’m delighted they are now behind bars.
“But Goran Jalal and Hemin Ali Salih both remain at large.
"Warrants have been issued for their arrests, and we will not rest until they are in custody.”
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of either Jalal or Salih should contact the NCA on: 0370 4967622.
Or, alternatively, you can contact the charity Crimestoppers on: 0800 555111.
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