November 8th 2024.
Amanj Hasan Zada, a 34-year-old man from Iran, has recently been sentenced to 17 years in prison for his involvement in arranging illegal Channel crossings from his home in Lancashire. Zada had a reputation for being a skilled smuggler and even boasted about it in a YouTube video where he is seen holding a gun and pretending to shoot it into the air. The video, believed to have been recorded in Iraq in 2021, also shows a crowd of men cheering and Kurdish musicians singing praises of his abilities to smuggle people into Britain on dinghies.
Zada, also known as Amanj Zaman by the people he helped smuggle, was charged with three counts of facilitating illegal immigration. The National Crime Agency (NCA) was able to link him directly to three crossings made from France to the UK in November and December 2023. In each of these cases, Zada had helped a group of Kurds who had traveled through Eastern Europe, Germany, Belgium, and then France.
His tactics included advertising his services on social media, often using videos of successful crossings where the people he had smuggled thanked him for his help. One such video showed a group of people on a small boat in Italy praising him. NCA officers were able to gather evidence by recording conversations he had with other smugglers, discussing the movement of people, locations, and successful crossings.
After Zada's arrest in May 2024, his phone was seized and analyzed. It was found to be linked to several social media accounts used to post material, as well as phone numbers used to advertise his services. Further investigation revealed that he had direct contact with some of the people who arrived in boats last year, and travel tickets for one of them were found on his phone.
The jury at Preston Crown Court found Zada guilty on all three charges of facilitating illegal immigration. He is expected to be sentenced at a later date. Martin Clarke, the NCA branch commander, described Zada's operation as a "sophisticated" people smuggling enterprise that used social media to advertise his services. Clarke also added that for Zada, it was all about profit, and he had no qualms about putting people in life-threatening situations as long as he got paid.
The NCA is determined to stop people smugglers like Zada, who put lives at risk for their own financial gain. They will continue to do everything in their power to put a stop to this illegal and dangerous business, no matter where it operates.
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