Man who helped smuggle more than 3,000 people into Europe jailed

An Egyptian fisherman who helped organise the movement of more than 3,000 migrants as part of a £12 million illegal boat crossing operation has been jailed for 25 years.

UK-based Ahmed Ebid, 42, was involved in smuggling nearly 3,800 people from North Africa to Italy between October 2022 and June 2023, with some making their way to Britain, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

Ebid is the first person in the UK to be convicted of being involved in people smuggling across the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Italy.

He arrived in the UK on a small boat in 2022 after spending five years in jail in Italy for attempted drug smuggling. He applied for asylum in the UK but never received a decision.

That meant he had been in legal limbo, neither facing removal nor being granted permission to stay. His sentence means he will almost certainly be deported once it has been served.

Ebid, whose wife and sons are in the UK, had been living in Home Office-funded accommodation in south-west London at the time of his arrest.

At his sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, the judge said Ebid ruthlessly exploited desperate individuals and his "primary motivation was to make money out of human trafficking".

"The treatment of migrants was horrifying," Judge Adam Hiddleston said.

"This was a commercial enterprise, pure and simple. The risk of loss of life was considerable. These were fishing boats, not ferries".

Ebid "exercised a managerial role at a very high level", the court heard, bribing officials and ordering threats of violence towards the migrants.

He was arrested in 2023 after Italian security services looked into satellite phones being used by migrants on Mediterranean crossings from Libya to Europe, in particular Italy.

They found that some handsets which were being used to call the country's coastguard had also been connecting during the journey to a British mobile number.

The NCA linked that mobile phone to Ebid and then bugged his home to record evidence.

The agency found he was involved in a number of smuggling operations, transporting thousands of men, women and children, often in dangerously overcrowded fishing vessels.

Ebid even told an associate to kill and throw any migrants caught with their phones into the sea, in a bid to avoid law enforcement, the NCA said.

The smuggler had described himself on Facebook as "Captain Ahmed" and notebooks in his home included Mediterranean Sea navigational details and lists of payments related to crossings.

Ebid had admitted facilitating illegal immigration to the EU - a crime under UK law - but disputed the importance of his role.

The NCA's investigation revealed he had a management role in the smuggling network.

Jacque Beer, regional head of investigation at 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."