A 45-year-old Turkish boat supplier was sentenced on appeal on Monday to 11 years in prison and a €500,000 fine for supplying vessels and cut-price life jackets used to smuggle migrants across the North Sea to the UK.
Adem S. ran a nautical equipment business in Istanbul and, according to the court, supplied boats, outboard motors and life jackets for years to a people-smuggling network operating between continental Europe and the UK.
The investigation began after police in West Flanders repeatedly found vehicles near the French border carrying boats, outboard motors and life jackets from late 2019 onwards. Most of the vehicles were travelling from Germany to northern France.
Drawing on around 40 separate judicial investigations, Belgium’s federal judicial police in West Flanders gradually mapped out a large smuggling organisation.
Suspect supplied nautical equipment to people smugglers
The network’s Kurdish kingpin was arrested in London in May 2022. In January 2025, the Ghent Court of Appeal sentenced him to 13 years in prison, while senior figures in Germany received terms ranging from six to 12 years.
Investigators found messages on Adem S.’s phone showing conversations with the gang’s leader about deliveries of boats, life jackets and outboard motors. In December 2021, the smuggling boss even sent him a news article about a fatal crossing in which 27 people died.
The court found that Adem S. continued supplying nautical equipment to the group even after the arrest of its central figure.
Prosecutors appeal against original sentence
He was eventually arrested in early November 2024 at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, where he had travelled for a boat show. An examination of his phone showed he was active in several chat groups focused on nautical equipment.
Adem S. told the court he had never personally put anyone into a boat.
Prosecutors appealed after he was initially given an 11-year sentence, arguing that the equipment he supplied was dangerously poor. They said most of it was cheap Chinese-made gear and described the life jackets not as rescue equipment but as “drowning equipment."
In court, the prosecution said an outboard motor cost the equivalent of €214 and a life jacket with a whistle just €0.38. Prosecutors argued that such equipment was used to send men, women and children across one of the world’s most dangerous sea routes.
Appeal court denies call for longer jail term
The prosecutor-general asked for the maximum sentence of 15 years, calling 11 years too lenient.
The appeal court ultimately upheld the 11-year prison term but also imposed a €500,000 fine.
After the ruling, his lawyer, Thomas Gillis, said the decision was fair. He said his client was not among the leading figures in the smuggling world and that a 15-year sentence would have been excessive.
