A taxi driver who was part of a people smuggling network has been ordered to pay back £100,000 in proceeds of crime, or face jail.
Habib Behsodi, aged 44 and from Chatham in Kent, ferried migrants who had been smuggled into the UK in the backs of lorries up to the West Midlands, where the Vietnamese organised crime group he was working with were based.
He was also involved in taking payments from those who had been transported in.
Behsodi was found guilty of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration in December 2022. He was given a 20-month jail term, suspended for two years.
Following his conviction NCA financial investigators began work to identify assets that could be proceeds of crime.
At a hearing on Friday 27 June he was ordered to pay £100,000 or face an additional 12-month jail term. He has three months to hand over the sum.
NCA senior investigating officer Paul Boniface said:
“Behsodi made this money from his criminality, so it is only right that he should not be able to benefit from it.
“He played an important part in a people smuggling enterprise which saw migrants treated as a commodity to be profited from, transporting them from Vietnam to the UK.
“This case demonstrates that not only will we investigate and bring to justice those involved in organised immigration crime, we will also follow the money and stop criminals profiting from their wrongdoing.”
30 June 2025
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