A Gambian, C Jagne has been jailed for 18 months by a court in the English Midlands city of Nottingham after being found guilty of facilitating the commission of a breach of UK immigration law.
The 49-year-old married father-of-three used an organised crime group to arrange for his cousin to be illegally flown into the UK from The Gambia in early 2023.
According to a report in the Nottingham Post yesterday, Jagne made “the stupid decision” to provide passport photos, payment and documentation to the traffickers to enable his cousin to be flown into Manchester Airport from Banjul.
Court records indicated that Jagne, an accountancy graduate and taxi driver, initially did not think what he was doing was illegal but once it became apparent it was, he carried on regardless.
Jailing him for 18 months, Judge Michael Auty KC said: “It is important that I say from the beginning, because there is a lot of public concern about illegal entry into the UK, that since your arrival in the UK in 2008 you have not relied on the state and you have worked industriously, holding down two jobs and contributing, paying your taxes which is expected from every citizen of the UK.
“The negative aspect of this case is that the person you dealt with, a man called ‘Mane’, was undeniably part of a serious organised crime group actively involved in the illegal entry to bring Gambian nationals into the UK where they had no right to be. His operation is very different to yours and I understand he will be sentenced for his role later this year. Your role was to facilitate the entry into the UK of your cousin who was raised like a brother to you. You were initially seeking legitimate entry but there came a point that it must have been plain that his entry into the UK was unlawful and despite that you continued to play a role in it.”
Lauren Butts, prosecuting, said the offences dated from between late 2022 and early 2023.
She said the defendant began communication with a man who, unbeknown initially to him, was high up in a crime group which was illegally facilitating the entry into the UK from Africa.
But, she said, within a short space of time it became clear to the defendant what was happening was illegal and despite this he carried on.
The prosecutor said: “In overview, this involved a Home Office operation into the activities of an organised crime group facilitating the immigration of Gambian nationals to the UK. The police described this as a sophisticated and professional operation involving over 200 arrivals and 595 forged documents, some used by up to four different people. This defendant’s involvement was to provide cash, passport photographs and documentation to bring (his cousin) into the UK from Gambia.”
