Small boats trafficker Mustaf Cunaj gets nine years

A people trafficker who organised 31 small boats crossings for migrants including small children has been jailed for nine years.

Mustaf Cunaj, 41, was part of a network of fixers linked to Hewa Rahimpur, 30, who headed a network which smuggled 10,000 migrants into the UK.

Cunaj, an Albanian living in of Tolworth, south west London, used the alias ‘John Brown’ to contact migrants and smugglers via WhatsApp and arrange crossings via small boat

In one conversation with another smuggler he arranged the crossing for a woman and children, aged five and nine, bartering prices from £8,000 down to £7,500 each.

In another message Cunaj referenced buying inflatable boats with prices ranging from £4,000 to £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’.

A number of images sharing map locations in Calais and Dunkirk were also discovered on his phone, whilst another shows two users’ locations as being in the Channel and the North Sea.

Videos were also recovered from the device showing a boat being launched from a beach and another of migrants wearing life jackets on a boat at sea.

Cunaj arranged 31 crossings across the Channel from France to the UK in just five weeks between July and August 2022.

He was first arrested by NCA officers in October 2022 and released under investigation. He was rearrested in September 2023 and charged with people smuggling offences.

Cunaj initially denied involvement in immigration crime, stating he only put family members in contact with others if they were interested in coming to the UK.

He eventually admitted conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration at Kingston Crown Court and he was jailed for nine years.

Rahimpur, an Iranian Kurd, was granted leave to remain in the UK in 2020 after sneaking into the country in the back of a lorry.

He headed the vast people smuggling network from his home in Ilford, east London, sourcing vessels in Turkey and delivering them to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

A judge in Bruges convicted Rahimpur last October and sentenced him to 11 years in prison.

NCA Senior Investigating Officer, Andy MacGill, said: ‘Cunaj was prolific, swapping hundreds of messages in only two months with one people smuggler organising these dangerous crossings, and involved in the arrangement of many more.

‘Entering the UK via small boat is extremely dangerous and evidence showed Cunaj had no regard for those he was smuggling, even arranging crossings for young children.

‘The NCA is committed to tackling organised immigration crime as a priority and our work continues to stop people smugglers working both in the UK and overseas.’