A people smuggler who boasted of making over "two million dollars" smuggling illegal immigrants across the English Channel in flimsy dinghies, has been jailed.

Birmingham-based Pistiwan Jameel, 55, who came to the UK from Iraq in 2002, was a "fixer" who met with friends and relatives to broker spaces on boats being run by gangsters operating in northern France.

National Crime Agency investigators believe he helped mastermind dozens of cross-Channel journeys involving the smuggling of hundreds of people.

He was snared after surveillance officers watched Jameel meeting one such client, Albanian national Artan Halilaj, 39, in Perry Barr, Birmingham on 1 September 2023.

After witnessing the handover of cash Jameel was heard to make a phone call in which he boasted "my three passengers, all good to go, all okay".

Artan, who was at the time living in Southall, had himself arrived on a small boat from Belgium earlier that year and claimed asylum, but disappeared from the hotel where he was supposed to be staying as his claim was being processed by the Home Office.

The illegal migrant was attempting to organising passage from France for his relative Fiorentino Halilaj, 25, who crossed the Channel in a small boat the next day on 2 September.

On arrival in the UK his phone was seized by immigration authorities and handed to the NCA who found to contain a contact for Jameel.

Over the following days NCA officers were able to record his side of a number of conversations Jameel had with criminal associates, in which he arranged crossings for his customers, often referring to migrants as "pigeons" or "sticks".

On one occasion he complained that competition in the people smuggling market was driving prices down, while bragging that he had made at least two million US dollars for his criminal networks through his contacts.

Another conversation revealed he was involved in moving a migrant to Turkey from the Middle East, and expected to earn around ten thousand US dollars from the enterprise.

Artan and Jameel were arrested by NCA officers on 23 October 2023, while Fiorentino was arrested the following day at the immigration detention centre where he was being held.

Jameel's phone was found to contain information and messages relating to up to 50 people who had entered the UK illegally on small boats during 2022 and 2023, including images taken on boats in the Channel.

Artan and Fiorentino Halilaj were both charged with one count of facilitating illegal immigration, while Jameel was charged with two counts.

Jameel and Fiorentino both pleaded guilty, while Artan was convicted on 12 November 2024 following a week-long trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

Today at the same court Jameel was sentenced to four years and ten months in prison, Artan Halilaj was jailed for three-and-a-half years, while Fiorentino Halilaj received a two-and-a-half year sentence.

NCA Branch Commander Kevin Broadhead said: "The scale of Pistiwan Jameel's offending was likely far wider than just the crossings he was charged over. The information we uncovered during our investigation suggests he was prolific, and was operating over a considerable amount of time.

"The way in which he talked about the people he was smuggling and the profits he was making demonstrated he was only in it for the money. He was quite happy to risk other people's lives in flimsy boats at sea as long as he got paid.

"Targeting smugglers like him is a priority for the NCA, and we will do all we can to disrupt and dismantle the organised criminal networks involved."

The NCA is currently leading around 70 investigations into individuals or networks involved in the top tier of organised immigration crime or human trafficking, using a full range of tactics to target them.