Traffickers smuggled four people at a time in car boot

Two Britons took part in one of this country's biggest people-smuggling operations, sneaking Chinese immigrants across the Channel in car boots.

The pair lived in Belgium and France and took up to four illegal immigrants at a time hidden in estate cars.

Five Turks who ran the racket are due to be sentenced today at Southwark crown court for conspiring to assist unlawful immigration.

British national John Ashcroft, 61, who lived in Belgium, was jailed for six years for the same charge at an earlier hearing with five other men.

A second British man was arrested in France for similar offences where he is awaiting trial for heroin trafficking.

The traffickers charged Chinese immigrants up to £21,000 a time to smuggle them across three continents before arriving in Britain.

The gang was smashed following a series of dawn raids on addresses in London and the Midlands on 31 January last year involving detectives from Scotland Yard's Special Intelligence Section.