British police announced – yesterday, Monday – the arrest of 3 Afghan fugitives who were convicted by a Belgian court last November, in addition to 20 other members of working with an immigrant smuggling gang.
The National Crime Agency in Britain reported that Ziarmal Khan (24 years old), Zeeshan Pangis (20 years old), and Saif Rahman Ahmedzai (23 years old) were arrested between December 6 and yesterday, Monday, in London and its surrounding areas.
The agency added that procedures are scheduled to begin to return the Afghan convicts to Belgium to serve their sentences there.
The three men were among 11 defendants tried in absentia after a joint investigation conducted by the British Crime Agency and Belgian police. They were accused of sexually assaulting underage males and photographing them to blackmail them later.
Craig Turner, deputy director of the National Crime Agency, said the three were part of a network that “profits from exposing vulnerable people to dangerous situations while transporting them, and committing the most horrific sexual crimes against them.”
Last November, a court in the Belgian city of Antwerp convicted the three Afghans, in addition to 20 other members, and sentenced them to prison between two and 18 years. Their total sentences reached 170 years.
The court sentenced Ahmedzai to 10 years in prison, and Ziarmal Khan and Zeeshan Pangis to 3 years in prison, and the three were also sentenced to pay a fine of 3,000 euros.
The Public Prosecution in Belgium said that the gang organized trips for migrants from Afghanistan to Europe via Iran, Turkey and the Balkan countries, and they were transported by small boats across the English Channel from France to Britain.
During the year 2024, more than 37,100 people crossed the Channel, and 76 migrants were killed while trying to cross.
British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that her country’s government is committed to combating human smuggling gangs, and reported that the government has concluded new “historic” agreements with Iraq and Germany to confront this challenge.
Immigration has become an increasingly central political issue in Britain since its exit from the European Union in 2020, with solemn promises by previous governments to “take back control” of the country’s borders.
Last July, the British government announced what it called a “serious program” to return immigrants who are not authorized to remain in the United Kingdom to their countries of origin instead of the previous government’s plan to deport them to Rwanda.
On his first day in office, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer halted a deportation plan to send immigrants who arrived in the United Kingdom illegally to Rwanda.