A man who earned around £185,000 smuggling people from the UK to France in the back of lorries has today been jailed more than five years at Canterbury Crown Court.

Jaskirat Singh, 25, was charged by the Crown Prosecution Service of arranging clandestine travel for non-British nationals between December 2024 and March 2026. Earlier this month he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to facilitate illegal immigration.

The plot was exposed when 11 Indian nationals were found hiding in the trailer of a lorry stopped at Dover in December 2024. The information they provided, along with four other Indians found in a separate lorry travelling to France in January 2025, led authorities to Singh and his address in Wolverhampton. 

The Immigration Enforcement-led investigation found a wealth of incriminating evidence when they examined Singh’s mobile devices. This included voice notes, images, messages and videos. Some of the images were saved from TikTok advertising crossings to France. The prosecution said this was evidence that Singh was interested and involved in smuggling people across the English Channel. He was arrested and interviewed by Immigration Enforcement officers and subsequently charged by lawyers in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Amongst the evidence was a video likely filmed by Singh of a large number of £20 notes spread out on a bed and another filmed by someone else showing migrants getting off a lorry in an unknown location with the person filming saying, “UK to France”, suggesting that it was a successful smuggling incident.

Singh bragged in a voice message about successfully arranging for up to 60 people to be driven to France every week over nine months, but it is not clear if he was exaggerating to get more business.

One string of messages found on Singh’s phone dated June 2025 was to a Romanian mobile discussing payment for 15 people that had been smuggled to France in a lorry. The chat confirmed the driver was paid £5,500 for the human cargo.

The Crown Prosecution Service will take him back to court and seek to recover the money he made from his crime to ensure he cannot benefit from it in the future.

Peter Cockrill from the Crown Prosecution Service said:

“Jaskirat Singh played a key role in organising the illegal movement of people from the UK to France using lorries, putting individuals at serious risk in the process.

“The evidence showed he was coordinating drivers, arranging payments and actively involved in a sustained operation over many months.
“We will now apply for a confiscation order to recover as much of his criminal profit as possible.

“The CPS continues to work with partners in the UK and internationally to disrupt the organised immigration crime groups who are responsible for small boat crossings and bring those responsible to justice.”