A people smuggler who had 51 illegal immigrants in his lorry at Killingholme docks has been jailed.
Hungarian driver, Laszlo Horvath, 45 fled the country before his court case.
He was found by Border Force officers with the lorry filled with immigrants in June 2015 when he arrived from Hook of Holland.
Officers’ suspicions had been raised after seeing there was no seal attached around the trailer of the lorry and that the cords were untied and loose.
Inside there were 49 Albanian nationals and two Syrians.
Subsequent examination of the lorry, which had been carrying car engines, showed that the migrants had been standing on large sections of plywood which had been specially cut to fit the space.
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The Albanians were returned to Albania and the Syrian nationals were dealt with according to the immigration rules.
Horvath was arrested and the case was passed to Immigration Enforcement’s Criminal and Financial Investigation (CFI) team.
Horvath was charged with assisting unlawful immigration into the UK and released on court bail.
But he fled the UK before he was due to stand trial in November 2016.
He was eventually located in Hungary in June 2020 and arrested.
He was extradited to the UK in September 2020, with assistance from Hungarian Police, CFI’s fugitive team and the National Crime Agency.
Horvath pleaded guilty to facilitation charges on Thursday, January 14 during a trial which started at Grimsby Crown Court on January 11.
He was sentenced at the same court to 21 months for the facilitation offence, with a further six weeks to run concurrently for failing to appear for his trial. The sentence will be served in Hungary according to the terms of his extradition.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said: "This result demonstrates the significant and co-ordinated action we are taking to bring people smugglers to justice for the heinous crimes they commit.
“The criminals engaged in this abhorrent activity should be under no doubt that we will continue to relentlessly pursue them to bring an end to this vile trade.”
The court sentence comes just weeks after the Government announced construction of two border control posts on the South Bank creating up to 80 jobs.
Associated British Ports has received funding to build one of the control posts at Immingham's East Gate.
The other will be at Killingholme's Humber Sea Terminal.
Each will employ between 30 and 40 staff checking imports and are planned to be operational by July.
Anyone with information about suspected immigration abuse can report it online, by visiting: www.gov.uk/report-border-crime.
