A gang which smuggled thousands of people into Britain has been smashed after a nine year police operation.

Brighton man Harekrishna Patel masterminded the plot to smuggle Indian nationals into Britain via South Africa.

The gang made millions of pounds by charging people around £8,000 each for organising their passage into Britain.

Details of the criminal network were revealed by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) at the conclusion of Operation Coptine.

Reporting restrictions were lifted today following the conviction of six people at Leicester Crown Court.

Unemployed Patel was the joint leader of the British arm of the gang and entered the country illegally in 2003 to head an organised criminal enterprise from Brighton.

He helped smuggle dozens of Indian nationals into America from Britain using false passports.

He was sentenced in 2006 to ten years in jail, was ordered to be deported after serving his sentence and was handed a £100,000 confiscation order but the details of his crimes can only be revealed for the first time today after the court ban was lifted.

Patel was one of more than 40 people convicted as part of the investigations led by Leicestershire police.

Sentencing other members of the gang today, Judge William Everard said: "This conspiracy involved a professional and sophisticated operation.

"It involved the obtaining of South African passports, first by obtaining South African identities by the corrupt officials in the South African equivalent of the Home Office.

"And when all those false identities had been obtained it enabled corrupt officials to produce South African passports which were entirely genuine in appearance but of course fraudulently issued.

"I am quite satisfied that using those passports, people were illegally coming to the UK.

"People would then apply to go to college, thereby enabling them to extend their stay in this country.

"They never went to college at all but just used it as an avenue to stay longer in this country."

SOCA described Operation Coptine as their biggest ever investigation into illegal immigration.

It worked with police in the UK, America, Canada and South Africa to make 200 arrests throughout 2004 and 2005.

A SOCA spokesman said: "An initial investigation into some of these individuals back in 1999 only concentrated on Leicester and the maximum prison sentence for such offences was seven years.

"The reason the gang returned to their illegal enterprise was because it was lucrative and that's why we have targeted their money.

"We kept after the main offenders when they resumed their activities, dismantled their business and 200 people have been arrested around the world.

"We have already seen some of those involved receive much larger sentences at a hearing last year and a large number have been deported.

"The criminals have been hit with significant confiscation orders and further confiscation hearings are due this year."