
A British pilot has been sentenced along with two other people after trafficking four illegal Albanian immigrants to England.
The pilot was arrested at Deenethorpe Airport in Northamptonshire in March last year after disembarking from his plane along with three men and a woman who were trying to evade immigration checks.
British investigators found Richard Styles, 53, had conspired with former pilot and fellow airman Silvano Turchet, 68, to rent £1,500 from an airfield in Lincolnshire.
They were in contact with an Albanian known as 'Tim K' who gave directions for Styles' illegal passengers to meet him in Belgium.
Shortly after Styles' arrest, the Albanian group was stopped in a Mercedes taxi driven by Vijayakumar Sivakumar. The migrants were handed over to immigration authorities.
A British judge sentenced Styles to seven years in prison, Turchet to seven and a half years and Sivakumar to four and a half years, while the Albanians were charged with breaking immigration law.