Man feted as “the best smuggler” jailed for organising Channel small boat crossings

A man who organised cross-Channel small boat crossings from his home in Preston has been jailed for 17 years after being found guilty of people smuggling charges, following an investigation by the National Crime Agency.

Amanj Hasan Zada, aged 34, of Stefano Road in Preston, was today [8 November] convicted following a two-week trial at Preston Crown Court.

NCA investigators were able to link him to three separate crossings made from France to the UK in November and December 2023. Each involved Kurdish migrants who had travelled through eastern Europe, into Germany, Belgium and then France.

Zada, who was known by those he smuggled as Amanj Zaman, advertised his services on social media, sometimes using videos of those he had successfully smuggled thanking him for his help. One such video showed a group of men on a boat to Italy praising him.

Another video, found on YouTube by the NCA and thought to have been recorded in Iraq in 2021, showed him at a party with musicians singing a song in Kurdish feting him as “the best smuggler”, saying “all the other smugglers have learned from him”, while he throws cash at them and fires a gun in the air in celebration.

Back in the UK NCA officers were able to record conversations he had with other smugglers, discussing movements of migrants, locations and successful crossings.

Following Zada’s arrest in May 2024 his phone was seized. Analysis showed it was linked to a number of social media accounts used to post material, and phone numbers advertised on them.

He’d also had direct contact with some of the migrants who’d come over on boats in 2023. Travel tickets for one of them were found on the handset.

Zada was charged with three counts of facilitating illegal immigration. The jury at Preston Crown Court found him guilty on all three charges, and he was sentenced to 17 years in prison the same day.

NCA Branch Commander Martin Clarke said: “Amanj Hasan Zada ran a sophisticated people smuggling enterprise, using social media to advertise his services.

“Whie we have uncovered evidence directly linking him to three specific crossings, there is no doubt in my mind that he was likely to have been involved in many more.

“For him it was all about profit, and he had no issues with putting people in life threatening situations as long as he got paid.

“People smugglers like him risk lives, which is why we are determined to do all we can to stop them, wherever they operate.”

Tackling organised immigration crime remains a key priority for the NCA, and we are putting more resource into disrupting and dismantling the criminal gangs behind it than ever before.

The Agency has around 70 ongoing investigations into networks or individuals in the top tier of organised immigration crime or human trafficking, those inflicting the highest harm, and who are the most difficult to reach. Some of these sit right at the top of the NCA’s priority list.

The NCA targets and disrupts organised crime groups at every step of the route, in source countries, in transit countries, near the UK border in France and Belgium, and those operating inside the UK itself.