A people smuggling boss is being booted out of Britain after a two-and-a-half year legal battle which cost a fortune.
Judges ruled Khanh Chan, 43, must be extradited to France, where he faces eight years in jail.
His gang crammed men, women and kids into lorries for perilous crossings to the UK, netting up to £1million per trip.
Wiretap recordings of Chan and other gang members revealed he “was one of the main organisers of a Vietnamese illegal immigration network”.
The tapes also reveal that Chan, described by sources as an “evil Mr Big”, ordered the “reprimand” of a migrant. A Paris court convicted him in his absence of offences between 2014 to 2017.
Chan entered Britain illegally in 2012 but was refused asylum. He was issued with temporary residence permits by the Home Office which enabled him to carry out his international trafficking operation.
The dad of three was arrested at his £350,000 home in Bexhill, East Sussex, in January 2020.
At the time Steve Reynolds, of the National Crime Agency, said: “We believe Chan was a significant player in an organised crime group responsible for smuggling migrants across the globe.”
A judge ordered his removal six months later, a decision rubber stamped by Home Secretary Priti Patel.
The High Court refused his appeal bid last month. He is due to be gone by September 15 after a ruling by Westminster magistrates last Tuesday.
His case is thought to have cost the taxpayer around £125,000 in prison costs alone. The true figure will be far higher when court and legal costs are totted up.
In October 2019, 39 Vietnamese nationals were found dead in a refrigerated lorry in an industrial park in Grays, Essex, but investigators believe Chan’s gang was not involved.
