Gang who ‘Reverse smuggled’ migrants from UK to France convicted – Rebecca Austin led William Goss for the Crown
Many migrants from countries such as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia are flying legitimately to the UK on tourist visas before being smuggled to France, often by north African gangs in London willing to provide false identity documents. The trade has been fuelled by a French clampdown on the issuing of visas to visitors from several former colonies.
One linchpin of the lucrative racket, Madjid Belabes, 53, acquired British citizenship after arriving in the UK from Algeria more than 20 years ago. Until his recent conviction for people smuggling, Belabes was living in a council-owned apartment on the top floor of a multimillion-pound townhouse in Camberwell, south London. He masterminded a sophisticated operation that often involved him picking up migrants from a hostel in the capital that previously served as the headquarters of the Labour Party.
Belabes used a network of corrupt taxi drivers to transport his clients to locations near Dover, where they would be transferred into the back of a lorry bound for Calais.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) estimates that his gang was responsible for attempting to smuggle more than 240 migrants to France in ten months.
Prosecutors at Kingston upon Thames crown court, where Belabes was convicted and jailed at the end of November 2025, claimed he oversaw at least 26 “runs” in which north African migrants arriving in Britain were smuggled to France between December 2022 and September 2023. Belabes was later linked to an organised crime group led by Azize Benaniba, 41, another Algerian gangster living in London.
Benaniba and six associates were convicted of people smuggling offences last July after a trial at Isleworth crown court, southwest London. They had tried to argue as part of their defence that they were “simply doing the government’s job for them” by taking migrants out of Britain to France.
Investigators intercepted 157 migrants smuggled by Benaniba’s gang between February and October 2023. The scam also involved facilitating migrants’ travel to the UK from north Africa on legitimate tourist visas.
Belabes pleaded guilty to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration to France on the third day of a trial that had been expected to last three weeks in November. He was separately found guilty of possessing more than £11,000 in cash from his crimes.
Belabes was jailed for a total of ten years and nine months. Five taxi drivers who worked for him have also been convicted and face sentencing at Kingston crown court on January 23.