Jury finds Uber driver Vijayakumar Sivakumar guilty of ferrying illegal immigrants away from Deenethorpe airfield near Corby

The inside of the twin engine Piper Seneca used to fly the immigrants into Deenethorpe

The court was told he’d been involved in the plot to bring Albanians from Belgium to Deenthorpe airfield

A jury has found a taxi driver guilty of being involved in a plot to fly Albanians into Corby in a small aircraft.

Vijayakumar Sivakumar, 43, of Tooting in London, had denied the charge of assisting the illegal entry of immigrants into the UK.

But during a two-week trial at Leicester Crown Court, the jury heard how he the Sri Lankan national received hundreds of messages from one of the ringleaders Kujtim Karanxha – known as Tim K – in the months before the plot.

People-smugglers flew illegal Albanians into airfield near Corby before they wer...

He had also received a number of payments from him into his bank account including one for £3,000.

Sivakumar was arrested at Phoenix Parkway along with four Albanians who had that morning flown into Deenethorpe from Belgium. He had picked them up at the airfield in the back of his taxi after travelling up from London in the early hours of March 24 last year.

Sivakumar had also taken pilot Richard Styles from Kent to the airfield the night before so he could fly the Piper Seneca twin-engined plane out to Belgium.

The pilot was arrested by the National Crime Agency in the hangar after the flight had landed. The NCA had been tipped-off by suspicious Belgian authorities.

The jury was sent out to consider its verdict on Thursday afternoon and returned its guilty verdict on Friday morning (September 24)

The plot involved a gang of organised criminals with decades of serious criminal history behind them. Richard Styles, 53, of no fixed abode, has a long record of using planes to import drugs. Ringleader Silvano Turchet, of Chester, previously served a 15-year prison stretch for bringing class-A drugs into the country by plane.

The trio will be sentenced at the same court in April.

Albanian Kujtim Karanxha remains at large. Anyone who knows of his whereabouts can call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or visit this link.

Albanians have no automatic right of entry to the UK. They can apply for a visa for tourism, business or study but a third of the 24,000 applications in the first nine months of 2022 were rejected.