����ý

A people smuggler who helped to bring people into the UK on dinghies has been jailed for nine years.

Albanian national Vladimir Bardoshi, 36, led a gang that ferried illegal migrants across the Channel from France in dangerous conditions, police said.

Two accomplices were jailed in 2018, but police were unable to locate Bardoshi until he was found to be living in Spain in January.

He was extradited to the UK and pleaded guilty at Canterbury Crown Court.

Feim Vata and Xhemal Baco, who both pleaded guilty in November 2018, were arrested a month earlier while driving a vehicle carrying six Albanian migrants away from a Kent beach.

Baco had piloted a dinghy across the Channel, while Vata waited near the shoreline near Deal.

Police said Bardoshi was responsible for co-ordinating the operation, which made at least three trips from France.

The gang had put the migrants' lives at risk said Det Insp Clair Trueman, from the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit.

They had travelled in an "overloaded inflatable boat with no life vests or navigation equipment and across a busy shipping lane in total darkness," she said.

"It is remarkable that no one died during the extremely risky process."

Bardoshi admitted conspiring to breach UK immigration law, while Vata, 38, and Baco, 26, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.