Gang of people smugglers helped hundreds of illegal immigrants into Britain using stolen and forged passports in £2m criminal racket

By GLEN KEOGH, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT and JOHN SIDDLE Published: 16:34, 26 June 2026 | Updated: 16:44, 26 June 2026 A vast people-smuggling network helped hundreds of illegal immigrants enter Britain using stolen and doctored passports in a sprawling criminal racket worth up to £2million.  Mastermind Lamin Manneh, 51, oversaw a one-stop smuggling service, charging migrants thousands of pounds for forged travel documents before arranging their flights, finding them homes and black market work.  The highly-sophisticated enterprise operated for more than three years until 2024 and involved genuine passports and visas being altered and handed to different imposters for more than £5,000 each.  On Friday, Leeds Crown Court heard that the true number of people brought into Britain – mostly from Gambia - would 'never be known' but was 'certainly several hundred'. Former Boots delivery driver Manneh, of Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, and at least six others obtained genuine Gambian passports belonging to people who had been granted visas or permission to live in Britain. The ringleader is already serving a six-year prison sentence having been jailed in 2024 for facilitating the illegal entry of two men into Britain. When his devices were analysed, officers discovered the true scale of the racket which led to his latest convictions.  The court heard the passports were doctored by replacing the rightful holder’s photograph with a picture of a paying customer.  Images were changed both on the main biometric page of the passport and the visa itself.  The altered documents were then sent to migrants who used them to board a series of international flights before presenting themselves at airports in Britain under false identities.  Lamin Manneh, the mastermind of the scam, has been jailed for more than six years for people smuggling offences. He was already serving a six-year sentence for similar offending, imposed in 2024 Leeds Crown Court heard the sophisticated gang used doctored and stolen passports to facilitate the illegal entry of hundreds of people to Britain  Some passports were recycled again and again, with a succession of different photographs inserted into the same document.  Judge Neil Clark said: 'The exact number of people brought in is not clear. ‘The prosecution think that the number is in hundreds. I will simply say that it is clear that it is a very significant number.  'It is thought that the money that passed through Mr Manneh's hands over time may have been over £1 million, perhaps even double that.  'To what extent that amounts to profit, rather than turnover, will never perhaps be clear.'  He added: 'This was a large-scale conspiracy on a commercial scale.'  Manneh was jailed for six years and eight months after admitting offences including conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and money laundering.  Six others were jailed for a combined sentence of more than 22 years.  Paul Mitchell, KC, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court: 'This was a large-scale, highly organised conspiracy to secure the entry into this country of a massive number of people who had no legal right to enter.'  The court heard that the scheme unravelled in early 2024 when two men, Alieu Gaye and Ebrima Sonko, were stopped at Manchester Airport carrying forged documents.  Evidence recovered from their phones linked Manneh to their journeys and he was jailed in 2024 after pleading guilty to facilitating their illegal entry.  Detectives examining his phone also discovered images of 569 different passports and travel documents, unveiling a much larger illegal immigration conspiracy.  'Many of those documents appeared several times with photographs of different people having been inserted into them,' Mr Mitchell said.  Migrants were collected from airports, taken to addresses controlled by the gang and helped to obtain illegal employment.  Some were provided with further false identities, bank accounts and paperwork so they could work and build lives in Britain under the names of genuine residents. Sonko said he paid the equivalent of about £5,200 for false documents and travel.  Prosecutors believe that the racket generated at least £1million but potentially double that figure, with Manneh's wife Mariama Jallow, 46, making 'multiple travel bookings for illegal immigrants'.  Ida Chow, 40, was the 'heart of the financial arrangements' of the gang.  Tax records showed she declared earnings of less than £10,000 a year during the relevant period. Yet a total of £404,816 was credited to her bank account. The court heard that the passport of a dead Gambian man with British citizenship was used to bring three migrants into the UK.  Ousman Ndong died of a heart attack whilst visiting Gambia in 2017. His wife travelled to Gambia to deal with the formalities of his death and discovered that his Gambian passports were missing.  One migrant used Mr Ndong's documents to travel through Guinea, Mali, Togo and Ethiopia before arriving at Heathrow in December 2022.  Another victim was Sambujan Gassama, a soldier in the British Army who was born in Gambia.  In 2022, he returned to Gambia following the death of his mother and was the victim of a burglary.  His passport was stolen and ended up in the hands of two illegal entrants, one of whom secured work at a mattress recycling business in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, the court heard.  Police and immigration officers carried out a series of arrests in July 2025.  At Manneh and Jallow’s home in Heckmondwike, officers found bundles of cash, identity cards, passport scans, bank cards and loose passport photographs.  The court heard that Manneh moved to the UK in 2007 and had obtained British citizenship.  The father-of-three previously worked as an overnight delivery driver for high street chemist Boots.  Manneh, Jallow, Chow, Alieu Barry, 31, Sulayman Samatah, 46, Pa Sanneh, 43, and Musu Sanyang, 49, admitted participating in the conspiracy.  Manneh, Barry, Chow and Jallow also admitted money laundering offences, while Sanneh also pleaded guilty to entering Britain illegally.  Barry was jailed for 72 months, Sanneh for 25 months, Sanyang for 31 months, Chow for 44 months, Samatah for 36 months and Jallow for 59 months. 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