UK people smuggler jailed for 10 years over barber shop plot

Gul Wali Jabarkhel offered lorry drivers £2,500 per person brought to the UK

Gul Wali Jabarkhel was jailed for 10 years after trying to recruit lorry drivers to smuggle people into the UK from northern Europe. NCA

A people smuggler who tried to run the operation from his London barber shop has been jailed for 10 years.

Gul Wali Jabarkhel, 33, tried to recruit lorry drivers with the promise of £2,500 ($3,137) per person they smuggled into the UK from France or Belgium.

Jabarkhel, who claimed to have links with Albanian criminals, aborted the first run from Belgium in November 2020 and flew to Afghanistan with an accomplice, Baz Mohammed Jabarkhil, 47.

British authorities then frustrated their attempts to return and the pair were forced to turn to the same lorry drivers to bring them back to the UK.

Two other British-based associates of Jabarkhel were arrested after they paid a lorry driver in cash, at a service station, north of London, to bring them over.

Jabarkhel eventually managed to get back to the UK but was later arrested at his barber shop in north-west London in July 2021.

Two months later, Jabarkhil arrived in the UK by small boat and was detained by border officials before he was arrested.

The four men were convicted after a trial in April. Jabarkhel was jailed for 10 years, Jabarkhil for five, while the other two men received shorter sentences.

Chris Hill, of the National Crime Agency, said: “This group were seeking to profit from the clandestine movement of vulnerable migrants, driven by money and more concerned with detection at the borders than the risks to human life.”