Following an international crackdown on one of Europe’s largest migrant smuggling gangs, a court in France has sentenced 18 defendants to prison terms, some of them quite long. The alleged head of the Iraqi-Kurdish smuggling network, which is said to have organized the crossing of migrants across the English Channel to the UK, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the court in Lille, northern France, the daily Le Monde reported on Tuesday. The other defendants received sentences ranging from one to 12 years in prison and fines of up to €150,000 ($163,000). The prosecutor had described the acc…