An asylum seeker who arranged the smuggling of thousands of African migrants into Europe while living in Hounslow has been jailed.
Ahmed Ebid, 42, started organising boats, crews and supplies for voyages across the Mediterranean Sea from Home Office-provided accommodation weeks after he arrived illegally in Britain.
The Egyptian national was found to have organised seven crossings of a total of 3,781 migrants on fishing boats from Libya to Italy between October 25, 2022, and April 16, 2023, Southwark crown court was told.
The National Crime Agency said that an average of £3,273 charged to each passenger generated an estimated £12,375,213 in revenue in the illicit operation.
The NCA planted listening devices in Ebid’s flat in Isleworth, west London, which he was provided while his asylum claim was being processed.
A mobile phone linked to Ebid was used to call a satellite phone that contacted the coastguard for rescue once in Italian waters, the court was told.
In a phone call, Ebid was recorded as saying: “Anyone caught with phones will be killed, thrown in the sea.”
He added: “I am the owner of the work, you do what I tell you to do.”
Frederick Hookway, the prosecuting barrister, said: “The defendant appears to have authority over others … [and] control of how the conspiracy is carried out.”
He added that Ebid instructed members of the network to bribe Libyan authorities and quoted him as saying: “Put all the military under your arm. That’s what I used to do.”
A Newton hearing took place within the trial after Ebid pleaded guilty in October 2023 because his claim of being a low-ranking member of the crime network was disputed. The judge at Southwark crown court ruled that he held a “significant managerial role”.
Hookway added that a conviction in Italy for which Ebid was jailed for more than five years after being caught smuggling cannabis off the coast showed he had a record of using his “maritime knowledge to circumvent border controls”.
Bartholomew O’Toole said in mitigation that Ebid was a “committed family man” who had worked as a fisherman since about the age of 13.
The barrister quoted a prison chaplain as saying Ebid now “works really hard and regularly attends Friday prayers” and was “determined to change himself for the better” since he was arrested in June 2023. The offender had begun “mentoring young Islamic men who fall into depression within the prison system”, he added.
O’Toole said that Ebid “didn’t himself amass large quantities of money” and lived “in poverty” in his flat.
However, Judge Adam Hiddleston said: “You must be the beneficiary, even if hidden away in this country or abroad, of a considerable amount of that money.”
The judge said: “The risk of loss of life on a truly enormous scale was considerable.
“These were fishing boats, not ferries — they were not designed to carry many hundreds of people across a large stretch of water. They were not equipped for an emergency.”
He added: “That money [generated by the operation] came from the hard-earned savings of each of those desperate individuals. These were ordinary human beings — men, women and also children — who were ruthlessly and cynically exploited by you and the group that you were such a central and important part of.”
The judge sentenced Ebid to 25 years in custody and referenced the “need to impose deterrent sentences for this type of offending”.
He added: “There has to be a crystal clear message delivered to those engaged in this trade, that the protection of international borders … is taken very seriously indeed and reflected in a lengthy sentence being passed.”
The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 increased the maximum sentence for assisting unlawful immigration to life imprisonment.
After the sentence was delivered, Ebid said: “This is unfair.”
Ebid’s wife, who was attending the hearing with their second son, broke down in tears as he was escorted from the courtroom.
The NCA regional head of investigation, Jacque Beer, said: “A proportion of those he moved to Italy would also have ended up in northern Europe, attempting to cross the Channel to the UK.
“People smuggling is an international crime and, working with our partners both home and abroad, we are determined to do all we can to target, disrupt and dismantle the criminal networks involved.”
The minister for border security and asylum, Dame Angela Eagle, said the government would introduce counterterror-style powers for border enforcement in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.
She said: “For too long our borders have been undermined by vile people smuggling gangs putting lives at risk for cash.
“Ebid and his associates preyed on vulnerable individuals, with hundreds being crammed onto dangerous boats and charged an extortionate fee for their transport.”
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