A ROMANIAN people-smuggler tried to dodge being booted out of Britain by claiming he was in talks to play for Manchester City.
Dragos Lujinschi, 38, also boasted he was looking to buy a football club with City star Bernardo Silva.
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The lying Essex farm labourer made the claims during an extradition hearing at Westminster magistrates’ court.
His lies failed and he is due to be extradited to France, where he faces two years in jail for trying to smuggle ten illegal migrants into the country.
To try to avoid his removal, Lujinschi told a judge that he was frightened of being abused in a French jail and losing his home and job in Britain.
And he claimed he was “looking to return to playing football and has been in contact with Bernardo Silva from Manchester City in relation to training a team and investing in smaller teams, working to the Premier League”.
Lujinschi added: “There may be potential for me to sign a contract with them. These prospects would be ruined if I were to be extradited.”
On Facebook, Lujinschi boasts of being a City player since December 2023 — alongside photos of himself playing football in a park.
Dismissing his bid, District Judge Annabel Pilling said: “I do not find that his projected football career with Manchester City is at all likely.”
The judge also rejected claims that he was in relationships with “a number of women” who would be badly affected if he were to be extradited.
Lujinschi has been sentenced in his absence in France where he was caught by police parking his lorry and dropping off migrants on the border with Italy in May 2019.
He later started work at a farm near Colchester in Essex supplying major supermarkets with fruit and vegetables.
Last December he lost his job when he was jailed for 16 months for making abusive calls to emergency workers.
