Three people arrested in Iraq for allegedly smuggling Britons
Three men have been arrested in Iraq’s Kurdistan region for their alleged role in a global human trafficking network that transports migrants from the region to Britain and Europe.
The group of detainees are alleged to be linked to the same network as UK-based human trafficker Amanj Hassan Zada. Was jailed last year for his role in facilitating small boat Channel crossings.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said all three men are in custody and will be prosecuted for human trafficking offenses by authorities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).
In the first operation of its kind, NCA officers were deployed to assist the security council and security agency of the area in the arrests.
One of those detained was a 38-year-old man accused of working with a smuggling network to coordinate the transport of migrants to Greece or Italy using more than a dozen boats.
The NCA said each boat was carrying 60 or 70 people, who would then be flown to northern Europe or the UK.
The second person, a hawala banker, aged 40, is accused of processing financial transactions on Zada’s behalf.
A third man in his 30s was detained on charges that he acted as a middleman for the group, collecting migrants for movement through networks previously linked to Zada.
The three men were from Sulaymaniyah city and were arrested between January 8 and January 12.
Zada, from Preston, Lancashire, was linked to three separate crossings from France in 2023, involving Kurdish migrants traveling through Eastern Europe.
The 34-year-old Iranian national was convicted of three counts of promoting illegal immigration and jailed for 17 years in November.
According to the NCA, Zada used social media to advertise her services, sometimes posting videos of people she successfully trafficked thanking them for their help.
Another video posted on YouTube, believed to have been recorded in Iraq in 2021, showed Zada at a party where she was celebrated as the “best smuggler” to a song performed by Kurdish musicians.
NCA branch commander Martin Clarke, who was among those deployed to the KRI, said trafficking gangs were “endangering the lives of the people they are transporting, by promoting them through their social media channels.” They are feeding lies through the medium, and claiming that the journeys are 100 per cent safe”.
He said: “More than 70 people will lose their lives attempting to cross the Channel in small boats in 2024, so this trade must stop.”
