Four men who smuggled illegal immigrants into the country - "jam-packed" in hidden compartments in vans - have been jailed for a total of 28 years.

Garlic had been placed in the floor of one van to put sniffer dogs off the scent, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

Bulgarians Veselin Denkov, 43, Ivan Georgiev, 39, Iliyan Marinov and Georgi Stankov, 65, denied assisting unlawful immigration of a member state between May 1 and August 4 last year, but were convicted.

Georgiev was sentenced to nine years, Denkov to seven years and Marinov and Stankov to six years each.

A judge told them: “The offending is extremely serious for the following reasons: This was a sophisticated and well organised criminal venture. It was carried out with persistence and determination - indeed it was brazen.

“For you knew full well there was good money to be earned at the expense of desperate people. These people, I have no doubt, paid substantial sums of money in order to try to enter this country illegally.”

A jury heard some of the vans had made previous trips into Dover Docks on ferries from France before the discoveries were made.

Prosecutor Hugh Forgan said they were part of an organised group smuggling illegal immigrants across the Channel.

They claimed they did not know the immigrants were in their vans.

“The concealments were right at the back of the van,” he said. “The people are jam-packed in a very small space in two tiers.”

Marinov was arrested by immigration officers in the early hours of June 11 after arriving from Calais. Voices and the sound of a child crying could be heard at the rear of his van.

The rear doors were locked. The officers discovered a false bulkhead and inside were nine people - a family of five from Afghanistan and four Iranians. The floor was lined with garlic.

After Georgiev arrived at Dover from Dunkirk on July 1 the rear doors were forced open with a crowbar to reveal five members of an Afghani family, one as young as five.

Three days later, Stankov, a bus driver, arrived. Eight Afghanis aged three to 62 were hidden inside.

Mr Forgan said the plan was changed for the final trip by Dankov in an attempt to put immigration officers off the scent.

He travelled in a van from the Hook of Holland to Harwich in Essex. This time seven immigrants were found.

Judge Jeremy Carey said the entrants had been driven in a highly vulnerable and dangerous position at the rear of vans with little protection and exposed for hours.

“All this in order that you could earn money at their expense,” he said. “There was a substantial number of other trips, not just 29 total illegal entrants but many more.

“Your motive was a simple one - a desire to earn money and to do so by criminal means.”

Higher courts had made it clear that judges were right to impose deterrent sentences. The maximum sentence, he said, had been increased from 10 years to 14 years.

Georgiev was regarded as the most senior in the operation and would not normally have exposed himself to risk.

“You are a braggart and a liar on this jury’s verdict,” said Judge Carey. “You were an important player. Your reward would have been substantially financially greater than your co-defendants.”

Denkov had a “grave” record, having been convicted of “intentional killing” and unintentional killing” in Bulgaria and jailed for 18 years.

Georgiev had a conviction for unintentional killing and was jailed for six years in 1995.

After the sentencing on Friday, assistant director David Fairclough, from the Home Office's immigration enforcement criminal investigations department, said: "While the modus operandi used by these four offenders was complex, their motivation was anything but. Driven by money, they measured the value of a human life in pounds and pence.

"The investigation that has secured these convictions has been thorough and wide-ranging, starting with the detections by Border Force and carried on by my Immigration Enforcement officers.

"I hope that these convictions send a clear message that those engaged in this kind of criminality will be caught and will be brought to justice."