Wednesday, 4th October 2006, 17:24

A ringleader of one of Europe's biggest people-trafficking gangs was jailed today.

Ramazan Zorlu, 43 was one of three Turkish men who made tens of millions of pounds smuggling 100,000 people into the UK over a decade.

Zorlu, along with Riza Gun, 48, and Hassan Eroglu, 47, used increasingly dangerous methods to get illegal immigrants into the country.

After paying up to £14,500 to the gang, people were packed into tiny metal compartments on the underside of lorries, often with no food and little water.

Others, including children, were found dehydrated and exhausted in refrigerated trucks.

Zorlu, who has six children, came to the UK in 1974 and six years later was granted indefinite leave to remain.

But jailing him for eight-and-a-half years at Croydon Crown Court today, Judge Nicholas Ainley recommended he be deported at the end of his sentence.

Judge Ainley told him: "You were, I am quite satisfied, for a substantial period, part of a conspiracy at the heart of an operation that was providing a means of getting in.

"The operation in which you were involved was sophisticated."

The judge added that Zorlu had a network of international connections to assist his illegal business and he used various methods of transport including vans, trains, and even a light aircraft.

Judge Ainley went on: "This wasn't a business built on failure. There must have been many successes, otherwise nobody would have used you.

"This was done for money. The number of people being transported makes it plain that clearly, latterly, you must have been considering these people more as commodities than as individuals to be cared for. They were people from whom money was to be made, and it was."

Gun, from Barnet, north London, will be sentenced for his part in the conspiracy at a later date. Eroglu, from Islington, north London, was sentenced earlier to six years in jail and faces deportation after his sentence.

Outlining the case, Prosecutor Richard Whittam QC told the court that the ring worked by smuggling illegal immigrants in from Turkey.

He said: "It is the prosecution case that Zorlu and Gun were at the very heart of the network responsible for the facilitation of illegal entry."

He said an extensive two-year police investigation, codenamed 'Bluesky', had only uncovered the people who failed to get into the country. There would be many more who had been successful, he said.

On one occasion, 21 Turkish immigrants were discovered in a rented van at Cherbourg, France.

Mr Whittam went on: "The conditions were deplorable. Four young children were in the van and were, as it appeared, suffocating and suffering dehydration due to the temperature and conditions inside."

Each would have paid up to £14,000 for the entire journey, or up to £3,000 just to cross the Channel, Mr Whittam said.

Zorlu's gang also trafficked a woman who was eight months pregnant and who arrived in Dartford in the back of an articulated, refrigerated lorry. Another seven people were brought to the UK by light aircraft, the court heard.

One of the illegal immigrants revealed that his route took him from Turkey to Bulgaria, to Slovenia, then Italy and across Central Europe to Belgium, where he was arrested.

The court was shown photographs of a six-foot by one-foot metal compartment underneath a lorry, especially constructed to beat machines used to detect heartbeats and breathing.

Mr Whittam said that in a series of telephone calls, which were secretly recorded Zorlu, Gun and Eroglu were heard discussing means of transportation and the money they were to earn.

A search of Gun's home and an internet cafe he ran in Tottenham, revealed a 'passport forgers toolkit' and 16 stolen passports stuffed inside a toy sheep.

There were also computer images, such as immigration stamps, which would be useful to anyone wanting to forge documents.

Gun arrived in the UK in 1990 and was given leave to remain until April 1994. A later application for naturalisation was refused.

He has two previous convictions, one for assisting illegal entry into the UK, when he was jailed for 30 months. He was also jailed for people smuggling in France.

Police believe most of the immigrants have been absorbed into North London's Turkish community, especially around Wood Green. They smashed the ring in massive raids last year, which saw more than 60 people arrested across Europe.

The ringleaders, along with seven other 'fixers' and couriers were arrested in Britain and all pleaded guilty to the people smuggling conspiracy.

As Zorlu, dressed in a blue shirt, was led away, he waved at the public gallery, which was packed with Turkish relatives and friends, some of whom wept

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