‘Heartless’ people smuggling gang who used post office in Leeds to launder money jailed
Receipts showed that they made payments back to Vietnam from post offices including in Leeds
A “heartless” people smuggling gang who used a post office in Leeds to launder money from their illicit activities have been jailed for a total of almost 40 years.
The organised crime group was found to be responsible for facilitating illegal entry to the UK of Vietnamese migrants and laundered more than £1.6 million in cash earned from that criminality.
Authorities were alerted to the smuggling ring after French custom offers at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris seized a package in July last year. Address to Quang Nguyen it was supposed to contain chocolates and clothes but actually had 22 Vietnamese passports inside.
An investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) eventually led to the arrest of twin brothers Vinh Van Nguyen and Quang Van Nguyen, both 31, from Coventry, Van Huy Nguyen, 23, from Rotherham, Lia-Chien Trong, 34, and Sy Trai Ho, 28, both of no fixed UK abode.
The operation was run by Vinh and Quang who advertised people smuggling services from Vietnam to Europe with Vinh messaging contacts on Facebook offering an "end-to-end service". The wider group worked together collecting cash from various locations across the UK and sending it onwards to Vietnam.
Passports were taken from migrants by members of the crime group in France, before they travelled to the UK via small boats and lorries, with the documents then sent to accomplices in the UK.
Using the passports as a form of debt bondage, the gang then collected money from the migrants and then sent payments for crossings back to Vietnam via Post Offices including in Leeds. They also made money transfers via bureaus such as Western Union, Money Gram or Ria.
The money was sent to accounts under the gang’s control in Vietnam.
Quang was arrested by West Midlands Police in Birmingham city centre on September 11 last year. The officers, part of the Operation Fearless team targeting organised crime in the Southside area of the city, saw Quang acting suspiciously after emerging from the driver's seat of a parked car and discarding the keys under a parked taxi.
The car was searched and found to contain more than £16,700 in cash and 220 Vietnamese passports in the boot bundled together with handwritten notes and receipts from previous money transfers.
The receipts recovered from the car led investigators to numerous transfers made at Post Offices in locations including in Leeds, as well as Coventry, Luton, Wigan, Liverpool, Leamington Spa and Rugby. Further investigation linked the majority of these transactions to members of the crime group including Vinh, Ho, Huy, Trong and Quang who transferred money over a 15-month period between July 2024 and October 2025.
Trong was further linked to the conspiracy following forensic analysis of a bag located within the car. The bag contained a number of passports wrapped in a bloodstained Argentina football shirt which contained Trong's DNA.
Quang's phone was forensically examined and found to contain messages about people smuggling offences. In one exchange with an individual called 'Bao', he was sent an image of a Romanian-registered lorry and a ferry booking for a further vehicle. Both vehicles had entered the UK on 18 July 2025, travelling in convoy to the M25 Thurrock Services. The pair discussed being underpaid for their involvement.
Other exchanges between Quang and a person called 'Alex' show discussions over the movement of 'chickens' (slang for migrants) and the prices for doing so.
Facebook messages between Quang and Trong detailed screenshots of addresses for nail salons along with names and dates of births of Vietnamese nationals, some of which related to the passports seized on 11 September. This showed that migrants were placed in workplaces under 'debt bondage' to pay for illegal entry to the UK.
NCA officers arrested Vinh, Ho and Trong in Coventry on October 1 last year and rearrested them in February this year along with Huy for the first time.
Vinh was convicted by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court on August 25 following a two-week trial. Quang and Trong pleaded guilty at previous hearings, while Ho and Huy changed their pleas to guilty just after the trial started.
At the same court on Tuesday (September 15), Vinh was sentenced to 12 years and six months imprisonment, Quang to nine years and nine months, Huy to seven years and two months, Trong to six years and Ho to four years.
NCA branch commander Sara-Jayne Moore said: "This group had no qualms about transporting migrants for profit, as shown by the heartless language used to describe their human cargo.
"The huge numbers of passports seized by the NCA and our policing partners demonstrates the scale of the operation overseen by Quang and Vinh.
"Migrants faced further misery on their arrival to the UK, with many working in the grey economy under 'debt bondage' arrangements.
"We will continue to work with partners abroad, including those in France and Belgium, to pursue the crime groups responsible for organised immigration crime, and bring individuals to justice."
Tackling organised immigration crime remains a top priority for the NCA, which is putting more resource into targeting the criminal networks behind it than ever before. This is bringing operational results with increases in seizures, arrests and disruptions.
The Agency currently has more than 100 investigations ongoing into individuals or networks involved in people smuggling.