By Andrew Harding, Reporting from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the UK
BBCAs he ambled, nonchalantly, throughout a sunlit public sq., the smuggler appeared to don’t know he was being adopted.
He was a brief, stocky, 39-year-old in a pale inexperienced shell swimsuit and baseball cap – an unremarkable determine taking a day stroll from a tented migrant reception centre to a close-by tram station.
Our group broke right into a run.
“We all know who you might be,” I mentioned, as we caught up with him midway throughout the sq. in Luxembourg’s capital metropolis.
“You’re a smuggler.”
It was a confrontation that marked the end result of a BBC investigation that had begun 51 days earlier – hours after 5 folks, together with a seven-year-old woman named Sara, had died within the sea off northern France. She had suffocated beneath a crush of our bodies inside an inflatable boat.
That investigation had taken us from the casual migrant camps round Calais and Boulogne, to a French police unit in Lille, to a market city in Essex, to the Belgian port of Antwerp, Berlin, and at last to Luxembourg and a three-day stakeout on the gates of the nation’s migrant reception centre.
The person now going through us – eyes narrowed, shoulders and palms raised in a half-shrug – was, we knew for positive, the smuggler who had been paid to organise Sara and her household’s harmful voyage to England.
That is the story of how we tracked him down.
“I swear it’s not me,” the smuggler declared, repeatedly, backing in direction of a close-by tram station beside Luxembourg’s European Courtroom of Justice.
However we had already seen his Iraqi passport and an Italian id card. Moments after we started to confront him, a remaining piece of the jigsaw slotted into place, when his cellphone started ringing in his pocket.
At first, he ignored it, however when he lastly pulled it out and we noticed the incoming name quantity on his display screen, we had conclusive proof of his guilt.
Why? As a result of we had been those ringing him.
Within the earlier weeks, a member of our BBC group had been posing as a migrant in search of to cross the Channel to England. After reaching out to a number of alleged middlemen working inside the smuggler’s wider community, our colleague, “Mahmoud”, had lastly been put in direct contact with him.
We had then secretly recorded a number of cellphone conversations with the smuggler – chatting with him on the identical cellphone he was now holding in his hand. In these calls he had confirmed his id and informed us he was nonetheless within the smuggling enterprise.
For a charge, he mentioned he may supply us “a simple journey” with “further guards, all carrying weapons” within the subsequent small boat leaving northern France. The present value was €1,500 (£1,269) per particular person.
As we stood earlier than him now, we may see our phone quantity, clearly, on his cellphone’s display screen.
We had discovered our man.
Our investigation had been prompted by the expertise of watching a determined incident unfold on the French coast on 23 April.
We had been ready, in a single day, on a seaside exterior the resort city of Wimereux – a spot we knew was a favorite launch website.
We had filmed as a bunch of French police had sought to intercept a ship, clashing violently with two teams of smugglers and their passengers.
The police did not cease them from boarding and we watched the chaos as the 2 separate passenger teams battled for area on the dangerously overcrowded inflatable. Smugglers routinely pack greater than 60 folks on to such boats, however this one had greater than 100.
A small woman in a pink jacket – later recognized as Sara – was briefly seen on her father’s shoulders.
Minutes later, just a few dozen metres from the shore, she and 4 others had been lifeless.
Some survivors, and the our bodies of the lifeless, had been taken again to shore by French rescuers – however the boat, with dozens of individuals nonetheless onboard, finally continued on to England.
It was the second deadly small boat incident of the 12 months close to Wimereux. We had now reported on both.
Within the days that adopted, we discovered Sara’s household and spoke to her father Ahmed about his grief, concerning the guilt he and his spouse felt for placing their three youngsters at such threat, and concerning the concern of imminent deportation from Europe that drove his resolution to aim a crossing to the UK.
After fleeing from Iraq 14 years earlier, Ahmed’s asylum declare in Belgium had been repeatedly rejected on the grounds that his hometown of Basra was now categorised as a protected space. He had just lately been warned he might be deported from Belgium inside days. His youngsters – all born in Europe – had grown up residing with kin in Sweden, however had additionally simply been given a remaining order to go away the nation.
However we additionally wished to dig deeper, to seek out the precise legal gangs liable for that boat, and to know how they fitted into a bigger, profitable community that continued to funnel tens of 1000’s of migrants in direction of a small stretch of French shoreline.
On 18 June, 15 small boats introduced 882 folks throughout the Channel – a report for a single day this 12 months, which helped to edge the entire quantity reaching the UK thus far this 12 months nicely over 12,000.
Following Sara’s demise, British police quickly introduced that they had detained two suspected smugglers who are actually awaiting extradition to France. However these had been younger males, allegedly engaged on the boat itself. Not the highly effective bosses in cost behind the scenes.
We got down to discover and communicate to as many survivors from that April night time as attainable, assembly some within the casual migrant camps or hostels for asylum seekers close to the coast in France. Most of them requested us to not use their names, not least as a result of some had been planning to make additional makes an attempt at crossing the Channel.
A younger Kuwaiti man, who had been subsequent to Sara as she died and had phoned the French police to ask for assist, efficiently made it to the UK just a few weeks later. We tracked him right down to Essex.
Lots of the dozens of people that boarded the boat with Sara and her household knew nothing about these in command of the operation. They’d spoken solely to comparatively junior middlemen who can usually be discovered exterior the practice stations in Calais or Boulogne, in search of potential purchasers.
As soon as a value had been agreed – and there was seldom a lot haggling – most individuals then went on to deposit funds electronically with intermediaries. They informed us these had been often trusted businessmen, typically working from barber’s retailers or grocery shops in locations like Turkey, Paris or London. The middlemen would then go the cash on to the smuggling gang instantly after a profitable crossing.
However three folks – together with two who had been on the identical boat as Sara – informed us the smuggling gang that they had handled was working out of the Belgian port of Antwerp, a metropolis identified for its legal networks and unlawful medication commerce. Additionally they agreed that the gang was led by a person nicknamed Jabal – “The Mountain” in Arabic. Two of them had met Jabal in particular person. One had spoken by cellphone.
The path additionally took us additional east to Berlin, the place one other supply confirmed Jabal’s id and informed us he had promised him a second crossing try, after a primary one had gone fallacious.
All our sources, by this level, had been telling us that The Mountain was in Belgium, most likely Antwerp.
We arrived in Antwerp in Could and commenced engaged on a plan to find and confront The Mountain. Considered one of his earlier purchasers had shared {a photograph}, and one other supply had offered us with a duplicate of his Iraqi passport and a European id card that appeared to have been issued in 2021 in a distant Italian hill city the place investigations are below manner into organised crime.
We found that The Mountain’s actual identify was Rebwar Abas Zangana, a Kurdish man from northern Iraq. Single. Apparently a religious Muslim. A migrant himself – with an unclear immigration standing – who was identified to have been residing just lately in Calais, Brussels, and Antwerp. We had been informed he labored with two companions and that there is perhaps an much more senior determine again in Iraq.
Mahmoud – our Arabic-speaking colleague posing as a migrant in search of a path to the UK – met a intermediary in a barber’s store in Antwerp, who confirmed that he knew The Mountain and would prepare for him to name us.
We waited practically two weeks for that decision, however finally, late one night time, our cellphone rang.
“Hi there. So that you need to get to Britain? What number of seats do you want? Are you prepared?”
The Mountain spoke briefly, curt sentences. On that decision, and two subsequent cellphone conversations, he confirmed that he was nonetheless very a lot in enterprise, assuring us that the journey throughout the Channel was “a protected job”, and that he had refined his ways since Sara’s demise.
“What number of of you might be prepared?” he requested, including that the climate in Calais wasn’t ok for a crossing the following day.
However hours after that first name to us, we discovered from a supply that The Mountain had just lately left Antwerp in a rush. The implication was that he feared arrest for his position within the 5 deaths in April. The Mountain was on the run.
Our supply then shared a display screen seize from The Mountain’s cellphone. It was taken inside a big, white tent with rows of black beds, the form of factor you would possibly see in a refugee camp. After we searched on the web for comparable pictures, we shortly discovered a single and really shut match, in a 2022 article a couple of new official refugee and migrant reception centre in Luxembourg.
We drove there instantly.
Luxembourg is a small nation. Its major reception centre for refugees and migrants is within the capital’s fashionable administrative centre. Why would The Mountain come right here? Maybe he merely hoped to lie low for some time, or to use for asylum below a brand new identify.
However how to make certain he was even right here? We couldn’t merely wander in. The compound was closed to most people, with a single entry/exit level guarded by no less than 4 non-public safety guards.
That first night in Luxembourg, once more posing as a migrant referred to as Mahmoud, our colleague managed to talk to The Mountain by cellphone. In a co-ordinated transfer, one other BBC colleague drove across the periphery of the compound on the identical time, sounding the automotive’s horn at common intervals. Listening in on the dialog, we may clearly hear the beeping coming via the smuggler’s cellphone.
The Mountain was right here.
However the best way to lure him out with out inflicting suspicion? If he fled once more and we missed him, we’d be again to sq. one.
The one possibility was a stakeout.
And so, for 3 days, our group saved watch, monitoring the compound’s entrance, and peering from the next vantage level that ignored the centre, giving us a view inside.
Lastly, at simply earlier than 15:00 on the third day, we noticed The Mountain strolling out with a bunch of different migrants. He turned left, heading in direction of the tram station. We broke right into a run.
“It’s not me, brother. I don’t know something. What’s your drawback?” he mentioned, as we caught up with him.
He appeared anxious, however saved his voice low and non-confrontational as he backed in direction of the tram station.
I took out an image of Sara, and requested him if he was responsible for the seven-year-old’s demise. He shook his head once more.
After which we rang his cellphone quantity. He may have ignored it. He may have waited in silence till a tram arrived. However once we requested him to reply his cellphone, and to point out it to us, he appeared momentarily confused and did as we requested.
Leaning nearer, we noticed the display screen and noticed the cellphone quantity we had been utilizing to name him for days to organise a small boat journey to the UK.
There might be little question about his id.
Within the aftermath of our confrontation, we informed the French police – who’re main the investigation into the deaths in April – about our findings. They mentioned they might not be commenting at this stage.
The UK is spending half a billion kilos over three years to help efforts by French police to safe its shoreline and to trace and disrupt the folks smuggling networks throughout Europe.
However the French border police informed us they had been deeply alarmed by the rising violence of the smugglers, and – whereas claiming some success in arresting gang leaders – senior French officers have privately recommended {that a} long-term resolution will rely on the UK altering its personal immigration and labour insurance policies.
Right this moment, Sara’s surviving household – her father Ahmed, mom Nour, 12-year-old sister Rahaf and nine-year-old brother, Hussam – are staying at a brief hostel for migrants in a tiny village exterior the northern French metropolis of Lille. The kids don’t have any entry to highschool, and no proper to stay in France past the autumn.
“[I want] a standard life, like all people. I’m lacking out a lot. I need to go to highschool in England as a result of I’ve my cousin there. She is my age. I miss… my pals,” Rahaf informed us, earlier than sobbing.
Ahmed is in touch with the French police, who’ve proven him images of a number of suspected smugglers as a part of their very own investigation into the deaths. He has claimed up to now that hiring a smuggler was his solely possibility. True or not, he says he has discovered a tough lesson.
“These persons are grasping. They care solely about cash. I hope they may face justice. All of them,” Ahmed mentioned.
“My daughter’s demise should not be in useless.”
Further reporting by Feras Kawaf and Kathy Lengthy
Further manufacturing/digital camera work by Paul Pradier, Marianne Baisnee, Riam El Dilati, Mohanad Hashim, Bruno Boelpaep, Xavier Vanpevenaege, Pol Reygaerts, Maarten Willems and Lea Guedj
