People smuggler arrested after manhunt

A wanted people smuggler, who fled Belgium and triggered a manhunt, has been tracked down and arrested in Coventry.

Officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) detained Asat Sulieman Mohammad, 55, close to Gulson Road, on Tuesday evening.

The Iraqi-born British national, was convicted of people smuggling and being a member of an organised crime group by a court in Ghent, Belgium, in January, but fled before he could be sentenced, NCA said.

Mohammad is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court as extradition hearings get under way for his return to Belgium.

An investigation by Belgian police, with the support of the NCA, found Mohammad had been involved with smuggling migrants to the UK from Belgium.

The agency said he had collected migrants when they arrived and arranged for payments to be made back to other smugglers via the Hawala banking system.

Hawala is an alternative and often informal system of organising money transfers.

Investigators linked Mohammad to a number of attempts to bring migrants to the UK in refrigerated lorries through the port of Zeebrugge, the NCA added.

It said in one case in October 2019, Belgian police rescued more than 20 Iraqi and Iranian migrants, including a number of children, who had been locked inside a trailer for more than three days.

"Distressed, they were found after banging on the inside walls for help," the agency added.

Despite having fled the country before he was sentenced, Mohammad was given a five-year jail term and €224,000 (£193,437) fine.

Gill Duggan, head of Europe at the NCA, said the agency would work to return Mohammed to Belgium, where he would serve his sentence, and ensure "justice was done".

Mohammad had played "an important role" in smuggling migrants to the UK, during which he, and his co-conspirators, had "risked the lives" of those they transported, Ms Duggan said.

It demonstrated the "callous nature" of people smuggling gangs who treated people as a "commodity to profit from", she added.

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