A suspected “kingpin” of people-smuggling operations across the English Channel has been arrested and is facing extradition.
Iranian Hewa Rahimpur was detained by officers in east London on Wednesday afternoon, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
The 29-year-old, who was living in Ilford, is wanted by authorities in Belgium, “where he is suspected of being a leading figure in a network said by prosecutors to be engaged in ‘systematic human-smuggling’ offences using small boats”.
He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday where extradition proceedings are expected to begin. According to the NCA, Rahimpur is accused of sourcing boats in Turkey and having them delivered to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and then directing “other members of his criminal organisation to take them on to the northern French coast, from where migrants would be transported”.
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