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"I'm usually arrested for drugs", the joke of the pilot who tried to bring Albanians to England by private plane

2023-04-29 19:31:45Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
"I'm usually arrested for drugs", the joke of the pilot who tried
The aircraft

A British pilot and career criminal has been jailed along with two other men in connection with an attempt to fly four illegal Albanian immigrants to the United Kingdom.

As part of a National Crime Agency investigation, Richard Styles, 53, from St Albans, Hertfordshire, was arrested at Deenethorpe Airport near Corby, Northamptonshire, in March 2022.

According to foreign media, he had just flown his twin-engine plane into the airport from Belgium, carrying three men and a woman who were trying to evade immigration controls.

NCA investigators found Styles had worked with former pilot and fellow airman Silvano Turchet, 68, to hire a six-seater Piper Seneca for £1,500 from an airfield in Lincolnshire.

Styles flew it to Deenethorpe, where Turchet had paid for it to be stored in a hangar before flying to Belgium on 23 March.

Investigators believe the men were in contact with an Albanian known as 'Tim K' who arranged for Styles' illegal passengers to meet him in Belgium. But the police were waiting for him there, who put them all in handcuffs.

After the arrest, Styles took the time to joke with investigators, saying, "I usually get arrested for drugs, so it's a little weird."

Shortly after Styles' arrest, the Albanian group were stopped by Northants Police officers working with the NCA in a Mercedes taxi driven by Vijayakumar Sivakumar. The migrants were handed over to immigration authorities.

Sivakumar, 43, who was previously convicted of trying to smuggle someone into the UK in the boot of his car, was also arrested. Phone records showed that he had been in contact with "Tim K" during the flight escape.
Styles had previous convictions for using a plane to smuggle ecstasy tablets from Belgium in 2003 and dropping cannabis in Jersey the same year while he was on the run from Belgian authorities. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2006, where he is believed to have met Turchet.

The pair were arrested by Dutch authorities in 2017 in connection with another human smuggling attempt. Styles would later be sentenced in absentia.

Turchet was arrested at his home in Nottingham in July 2022 after NCA investigators identified him as the mastermind. He initially denied knowledge of the plot, although phone records placed him near Deenethorpe Airport on March 24 and showed he had called Styles nine times.

All three men were charged with facilitating an immigration violation, a charge Styles pleaded guilty to at a hearing on August 8, 2022.

Turchet pleaded guilty on the first day of his trial, while Sivakumar was found guilty by a jury after a five-day trial at Leicester Crown Court in February 2023.

On April 28, a judge in the same court sentenced Styles to seven years in prison, Turchet to seven and a half years and Sivakumar to four and a half years.

"I'm usually arrested for drugs", the joke of the pilot who tried
Richard Styles, Silvano Turchet and Vijayakumar Sivakumar

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