A UK-based people smuggler who helped “ruthlessly and cynically” exploit migrants as part of a £12 million illegal boat crossing operation has been jailed for 25 years. Egyptian-born Ahmed Ebid, 42, helped organise the movement of nearly 3,800 migrants – including women and children – on just seven fishing boat crossings from North Africa to Italy between October 2022 and June 2023 and some of them made their way to Britain, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
Ebid even told an associate to kill and throw into the sea any migrants caught with phones, in a bid to avoid law enforcement, the NCA said – all while he was living in Isleworth, West London. He was living on benefits in a taxpayer-funded home, having arrived in the country as an asylum seeker in 2022, according to reports, despite a previous drug-smuggling conviction in Italy.
The defendant, who is believed to be the first person convicted of organising boat crossings across the Mediterranean from the UK, was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday to 25 years, having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration. Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid had a “significant managerial role within an organised crime group” and that his “primary motivation was to make money out of human trafficking”.
The judge told Ebid the “conspiracy that you were a part of generated millions of pounds” and that he must have been a “beneficiary” of “a significant amount”.
He added that the “truly staggering” amount of money came from the “hard-earned savings of desperate individuals”, who were “ruthlessly and cynically exploited” by Ebid and the crime group. The judge said “exploitation on such an enormous scale” causes “so much misery” and “could so easily lead to a considerable loss of life”.
The judge also said: “The treatment of the migrants on your orders and in your name was horrifying. They were simply a commodity to you. You talked of them in terms of units, not as people, referring to them as ‘cartons’.
“The important thing to you was that each paid up the exorbitant fare that was charged for their crossing and that nobody did anything to compromise your operation – such as by carrying a mobile phone.
“As we know, if they did, you were prepared to instruct others to threaten them with death. You demonstrated no empathy or care whatsoever for these desperate and vulnerable men, women and children. “
He added: “There has to be, it seems to me, a crystal-clear message delivered to those engaged in this trade, that the protection of international borders is also something that, when the court has such a responsibility, is taken very seriously indeed and reflected in a lengthy sentence being passed.”
The defendant was heard ranting in the dock after the sentencing, while a woman in the public gallery wept. Ebid arrived in the UK in October 2022 after crossing the Channel in a small boat, having been sentenced in Italy in 2017 to a total of six years and two months in prison for drug-smuggling.
Soon afterwards, he began arranging the operations in the Mediterranean. He was working with people-smuggling networks to organise boats, bringing over hundreds of migrants at a time on extremely dangerous vessels from Libya and advertising the crossings on Facebook.
Ebid sourced and provided boats and crews, provided technical advice during the crossings, helped house migrants, and dealt with any required paperwork, prosecutors said. In one conversation with an associate, recorded via a listening device planted by NCA officers, he said migrants were not to carry phones with them on his boats. He said: “Tell them guys anyone caught with a phone will be killed, threw in the sea.”
One crossing on October 25 2022 saw more than 640 migrants rescued by the Italian authorities after they attempted to cross in a wooden boat, the NCA said. It was taken into port in Sicily and two bodies were recovered.
In another, 265 migrants were rescued by the Italian coastguard from a 20m (66ft) fishing boat found adrift in the Mediterranean in early December 2022 after it left Benghazi. Two search and rescue operations occurred in April 2023 after distress calls to the coastguard and in each case more than 600 migrants were on board the boats, the NCA said.
Ebid helped with at least seven separate crossings which carried 3,781 people into Italian waters.
Each migrant had been charged an average of around £3,200, netting those involved £12.3 million, the NCA said. Ebid was detained in Isleworth in June 2023 after the NCA, along with the Italian Guardia di Finanza and the Italian coastguard, linked him to the crossings.
On a phone seized from him, investigators found pictures of boats, conversations about the possible purchase of vessels, videos of migrants making the journey, and screenshots of money transfers. Tim Burton, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Ahmed Ebid played a leading role in a sophisticated operation, which breached immigration laws and endangered lives, for his own and others’ financial gain.
“Vulnerable people were transported on long sea journeys in ill-equipped fishing vessels completely unsuitable for carrying the large number of passengers who were on board. His repeated involvement in helping to facilitate these dangerous crossings showed a complete disregard for the safety of thousands of people, whose lives were put at serious risk.”
Jacque Beer, of the NCA, said: “Ebid was part of a crime network who preyed upon the desperation of migrants to ship them across the Mediterranean in death-trap boats. The cruel nature of his business was demonstrated by the callous way he spoke of throwing migrants into the sea if they didn’t follow his rules.
“To him they were just a source of profit. He was based in the UK but organising crossings from North Africa. A proportion of those he moved to Italy would also have ended up in northern Europe, attempting to cross the Channel to the UK.”
Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle 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 on to dangerous boats and charged an extortionate fee for their transport.”
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