This is the moment a ‘prolific’ Albanian people trafficker, who used WhatsApp to organise 31 small boat crossings for migrants, including young children, is arrested.
Mustaf Cunaj was given a nine-year prison sentence for his role in the smuggling of migrants on inflatable boats for thousands of pounds each.
The 41-year-old was part of a trafficking network that brought almost 10,000 illegal immigrants into the United Kingdom.
Recently, surveillance footage of the smuggler’s arrest has surfaced, showing Cunaj being approached by nighttime plainclothes police.
The trafficker, wearing an orange hoodie, then speaks to the officers, who tell him that he ‘conspired to facilitate an immigration breach’.
The pair of officers then take Cunaj along the pavement, each holding one of his arms, before putting him into a black vehicle which is waiting down the road.
The trafficker’s phone was found after his arrest. Two videos that were saved on the device showed migrants wearing life jackets aboard a boat at sea and a boat being launched from a beach.
Several images sharing map locations in Calais and Dunkirk were also discovered on his phone, with one showing two users’ locations in the Channel and the North Sea.
Cunaj, who used the alias ‘John Brown’ in WhatsApp conversations with migrants and smugglers, arranged the crossings for five weeks between July and August 2022.
In one conversation with another smuggler, he arranged a crossing for a woman and two children, aged five and nine, for £7,500 each.
In another message, Cunaj talked about buying inflatable boats for between £4,000 and £4,500 per boat.
He also asked about lifejackets, telling his contact, ‘I have five people, they don’t know how [to wear a lifejacket] as they are small children’.
Cunaj was detained once previously in October 2022, released under investigation, and then arrested once more in September 2023 on suspicion of people-smuggling charges.
In the beginning, the trafficker denied any involvement in immigration crimes, saying he only connected family members with those who could be interested in visiting the UK.
He later admitted conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration at Kingston Crown Court and was jailed for nine years.
Cunaj’s smuggling network was connected to Hewa Rahimpur, a 30-year-old Iranian who managed the circle from his residence in Ilford, east London. Rahimpur sourced vessels in Turkey and sent them to Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
A sentence of nine years isn’t much of a deterrent. How about a minimum of one year for every person they illegally smuggled in and endangered their lives? He will be out of prison in about four and a half years. His money will be waiting for him and he will most likely carry on as before. He should have been sentenced to the full arm of the law, his money taken from him and immediate deportation on release is what should happen, but it won’t because the UK is beyond a joke.
Although his capture is a positive development, there will undoubtedly be successors.
British authorities’ token pre-election activities! And no matter which way this goes, it’s the good old British taxpayer that ends up paying. Enough is enough.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 