A French court has convicted and imprisoned 18 members of a human-trafficking network responsible for organizing thousands of migrant crossings across the English Channel seaway using small boats.

The defendants, dubbed "merchants of death" by prosecutors, were arrested as part of a coordinated 2022 European police operation that spanned multiple countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

According to the prosecution, between 2020 and 2022, the network controlled most Channel migrant crossings from France to England, running operations that claimed numerous lives.

Mirkhan Rasoul, a 26-year-old Iraqi-Kurd identified as the network's ringleader, received the harshest sentence of 15 years in prison at a Lille court on Tuesday, for coordinating the trafficking operation, which he reportedly ran from his prison cell following previous convictions.

The remaining 17 defendants, including one woman and an Iranian man extradited from the UK, received prison sentences ranging from two to 10 years for their roles in the gang, reported The Associated Press news agency.

"These sentences are obviously very severe," said Kamel Abbas, a lawyer who represented one of the defendants already imprisoned in France. "That's a testimony of the scale of the case and of the intention to severely punish the smugglers."

Of the 18 defendants – including 14 Iraqi nationals along with individuals from Iran, Poland, France, and the Netherlands – many were absent during sentencing, with some participating remotely from prisons in northern France. Arrest warrants were issued for nine other defendants who were convicted in absentia.

The prosecutor condemned the group's reckless practices of overloading vessels to 15 times their capacity, stating: "The defendants are not volunteers helping their fellow humans but merchants of death."

In coordinated operations across the five countries led by Europol and Eurojust, authorities conducted more than 50 searches, seizing 1,200 life jackets, about 150 inflatable boats, and 50 boat engines.

Already serving an eight-year sentence for attempted murder, Rasoul received the maximum recommended sentence and a 200,000 euro ($214,000) fine for directing the extensive smuggling network from his French prison cell.

British and French authorities, cooperating through a Joint Intelligence Cell unit based in northern France, helped secure the conviction of several smugglers, including Kaiwan Poore who was arrested at Manchester Airport and extradited to France.

The UK's National Crime Agency, or NCA, said in a statement that each Channel crossing earned the network around 100,000 euros in profit.

The NCA said: "Their sole motive was profit, and they didn't care about the fate of migrants they were putting to sea in wholly inappropriate and dangerous boats."