Man known as 'best smuggler' jailed for 17 years

A man who organised cross-Channel small boat crossings by advertising them on Facebook has been jailed.

Amanj Hasan Zada, from Preston in Lancashire, was linked to three separate crossings from France in 2023 involving Kurdish migrants who had previously travelled through eastern Europe.

After a two-week trial at Preston Crown Court, the 34-year-old Iranian national was convicted on three counts of facilitating illegal immigration and jailed for 17 years.

Martin Clarke, from the National Crime Agency (NCA), said there was "no doubt... [Zada] was likely to have been involved in many more" illegal crossings.

He said Zada had run "a sophisticated enterprise" and that "for him it was all about profit".

Zada "had no issues with putting people in life-threatening situations as long as he got paid", said Mr Clarke.

"People smugglers like him risk lives, which is why we are determined to do all we can to stop them, wherever they operate."

The NCA said it had about 70 ongoing investigations into networks or individuals in the top tier of organised immigration crime or human trafficking.

Zada, known by those he tried to smuggle as Amanj Zaman, sometimes used videos of him being thanked by those he had previously helped, the NCA said.

One showed a group of men on a boat to Italy praising him.

Another, thought to have been recorded in Iraq in 2021, showed Zada at a party with musicians singing a song in Kurdish praising him as "the best smuggler", saying "all the other smugglers have learned from him" while he throws cash at them and fires a gun into the air in celebration.

Back in the UK, NCA officers were able to record conversations Zada had with other smugglers, discussing movements of migrants, locations and successful crossings.

Zada, of Stefano Road, was ultimately arrested in May and his phone was seized.

Analysis showed it was linked to a number of social media accounts used to post material, and phone numbers advertised on them.

He had also had direct contact with some of the migrants who had come to the UK in 2023.