An organiser of a plot to smuggle illegal immigrants into the UK, who also ran a “crash for cash” insurance scam, has been ordered to hand over almost £105,000.

Fitness model and bodybuilder Mohammed Sangak, jailed for 10 years in April last year, masterminded a conspiracy to bypass border controls from May to December 2016.

The 30-year-old former asylum seeker, who fled northern Iraq as a teenager, also pocketed hundreds of thousands of pounds from insurance claims involving bogus road traffic accidents.

Maidstone Crown Court heard in the seven-month period of people smuggling a total of 87 illegal immigrants were discovered in seven vehicles stopped on both sides of the Channel.

Some were hiding in a consignment of wardrobes in a hired truck.

Sangak, who has changed his name by deed poll to Mohammed Rameo, of Gold Crest Drive, Chatham, admitted the conspiracy offence.

He denied conspiracy to defraud in the insurance scam, but was convicted.

He was jailed for two years for that offence and eight years consecutive for the facilitating conspiracy.

Judge Philip St John-Stevens said while Sangak was in the middle of the crash fraud, he was at the heart of the people smuggling conspiracy.

“It is clear to everyone that individuals trafficked into this country may well be, and often are, vulnerable and can be preyed upon by criminal organisations,” he said.

“Often the way they are conveyed into this country is fraught with danger - hidden behind cover loads that in itself is a dangerous enterprise.

“In addition to the position of vulnerability of the individual is the issue of national security.

“Given the present climate we live in, to facilitate individuals into this country who avoid border controls or official scrutiny has the potential of undermining, or at least compromising, national security, and the seriousness of that cannot be underplayed.”

Sangak was involved in 21 “staged or invented” accidents over a four-year period, but prosecutor Edmund Fowler said the scam was “just the tip of the iceberg”.

Sangak’s benefit from crime was assessed at £298,863. His realisable assets totalling £104,976 included a £70,000 Range Rover, £30,000 Mercedes and just under £5,000 cash.

He was given three months to pay and or 18 months will be added to his sentence in default.