A pilot who tried to smuggle 4 people from Belgium to Britain in a private airplane was jailed for 7 years
- A pilot who tried to use a plane to smuggle four people from Belgium to Britain has been jailed.
- Richard Styles joked with police when he was arrested, saying “I normally get arrested for drugs.”
- Styles was previously jailed for using a small plane to smuggle ecstasy and cannabis.
A pilot once jailed for smuggling drugs in a light aircraft has been sentenced again – this time for trying to smuggling people.
Richard Styles, 53, was sentenced to seven years, alongside fellow pilot Silvano Turchet and taxi driver Vijayakumar Sivakumar, for trafficking three men and a woman who were trying to evade immigration checks from Belgium to Britain.
The UK’s National Crime Agency said Styles worked with Turchet to rent a six-seater Piper Seneca plane for £1,500 ($1,900).
Investigators believe the men were in contact with an Albanian known as “Tim K,” who arranged for Styles to meet his passengers in Belgium. When the plane landed at Deenethorpe Airfield in Northamptonshire, England on March 23 last year, police were waiting.
When Styles was arrested, he joked with authorities, saying: “I normally get arrested for drugs, so it’s a bit strange.”
