The brother of a Kurdish people smuggler has been jailed for helping his sibling transport migrants to the UK.
Anjan Ahmadi, 27, worked with Amanj Hasan Zada, who was seen in a video of a party in 2021 being feted as “the best people smuggler” by musicians as he fired a gun into the air.
Zada, 35, was the head of a criminal network of smugglers that ran from Turkey into mainland Europe and then on to the UK.
He was arrested in May 2024 at his home in Preston, northern England, which he shared with Ahmadi, who was his driver. The gang used social media to advertise their services to would-be migrants.
Evidence found by National Crime Agency investigators showed that Ahmadi played a critical role in Zada’s group, keeping contact with migrants and booking travel tickets for their journey.
Conversations recorded by NCA officers showed the pair were in contact with a number of other smugglers in Europe and Iraqi Kurdistan.
Ahmadi was arrested in July 2024 after evidence implicating him in the gang was found.
Following his arrest, investigators found a recorded conversation with a person who wanted to travel to the UK with his relatives but “not by dinghy” on his phone.
Ahmadi referred the man to another smuggler, who dealt with lorries, saying “go with my name”. He pleaded guilty to facilitating illegal immigration to both the UK and EU, and was jailed following a hearing at Preston Crown Court.
Martin Clarke, an NCA branch commander, said the jailing of Ahmadi showed how the organisation is “targeting people smugglers at every step from their operations in the UK right the way back to source countries where they previously thought they were untouchable”.
In November 2024, Zada was jailed for 17 years after investigators linked him to three separate crossings made from France to the UK in November and December 2023.
Each involved Kurdish migrants who had travelled through Eastern Europe, into Germany, Belgium and then France.
A video, found on YouTube by the NCA and thought to have been recorded in Iraq in 2021, showed Zada at a party with musicians singing a song in Kurdish in which they praise him as “the best smuggler”.
They sing that “all the other smugglers have learnt from him”, as he throws money at them and fires a gun in the air.
Following Zada’s conviction, the NCA joined an operation in Iraqi Kurdistan, where another three members of the network were arrested in Sulaymaniyah in January.
It is the first time that the NCA has worked alongside the internal security agencies in Kurdistan, after the signing of an agreement with Iraq for its law enforcement officers to operate in the region.
Mr Clarke was part of the team who flew out to the Kurdistan region to assist with the arrest operation.
Those detained include a 38-year-old man accused of co-ordinating the movements of more than a dozen yachts taking migrants into Greece and Italy. Each boat would carry 60 to 70 people, who would then be moved on to northern Europe or the UK.
A Hawala banker in his 40s, accused of processing transactions on behalf of Zada, and another man in his 30s, suspected of being a middleman gathering migrants for movement by Zada’s network, have also been held.
