People smuggler jailed.

He is an Egyptian who was instrumental in smuggling people across the Mediterranean for many years, caught by mobile phone records.

Hopefully they can use the same modus operandi to catch the criminals putting lives at risk in small boats crossing the channel.

Spot on GG13.

It is a start and hopefully many more will follow!

Excellent news.

From the BBC:

He (Ebid) 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.

We really, really need to get to grips with this

I wish they had thrown away the key. Those type of people are evil, feeding on people's desperation and not bothering whether they put those people's lives in danger just so they canmake money. I hope they manage to catch more of them.

I don’t understand why he was allowed to stay if his asylum application had been rejected. Why wasn’t he deported immediately especially given his criminal record. Am I missing something?

Maybe because he would come straight back in disguise ? Just a thought. Why are his wife and sons still there? Another thought.

Perhaps they are victims of this horrible man too?

Sadgrandma

I don’t understand why he was allowed to stay if his asylum application had been rejected. Why wasn’t he deported immediately especially given his criminal record. Am I missing something?

If you read above (*Abracadabra*'s post) it sounds like he was waiting for a decision.

Waiting for a decision? Why?

Surely with his drug smuggling record, he should have been sent back, pronto.

And he was in ‘home office accommodation’. Forked out for by we taxpayers.

And the powers that be wonder why there is so much ill feeling about immigration, asylum….legal or otherwise.

What a mess it all is. No one seems able to get a grip on any of it.

If he was waiting for a decision, why was he in tax payer accommodation and on benefits within 2 weeks of illegally arriving on our shores and was able to run his £2million people smuggling business from there. We have our own people sleeping on the streets, it's a disgrace
Apparently we no longer fingerprint these arrivals and if we did it would have been easy to find out that he had been imprisoned in Italy for drug smuggling.
The rest of the world is laughing at us.

The problem is he will be replaced by another criminal organiser given the profits to be made. It's a wack a mole problem. We need to render the crime unprofitable.

Grantanow

The problem is he will be replaced by another criminal organiser given the profits to be made. It's a wack a mole problem. We need to render the crime unprofitable.

We need a deterrent! This government has not idea, they will never smash the gangs, as you say there will always be others ready to take their place.
Why scrap Rwanda without anything to take its place. We know that just the idea of Rwanda made some have second thoughts about making the journey across the channel. They were waiting for Labour to win the election knowing full well their passage will be that much easier.

Rwanda was eventually scrapped - after many other issues because our own Supreme Court judged Rwanda not to be a safe country in November 15th 2023. Remember it was a plan to send all migrants there to be processed there.

"The UK Supreme Court ruled the government's policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda unlawful in November 2023.

The court found that there were substantial grounds for believing asylum seekers removed to Rwanda would face a real risk of ill-treatment, specifically refoulement (being returned) to their country of origin.

This decision was based on concerns about the deficiencies in Rwanda's asylum system and the potential for those with well-founded fears of persecution to be returned to their home countries"

sundowngirl

If he was waiting for a decision, why was he in tax payer accommodation and on benefits within 2 weeks of illegally arriving on our shores and was able to run his £2million people smuggling business from there. We have our own people sleeping on the streets, it's a disgrace
Apparently we no longer fingerprint these arrivals and if we did it would have been easy to find out that he had been imprisoned in Italy for drug smuggling.
The rest of the world is laughing at us.

We stopped fingerprinting arrivals under the last government in 2023 to cut down on processing bureaucracy. This did indeed make ID and tracing harder, seems pretty key to me. I can't imagine why they stopped it, unless at the time the assumption was "we'll just send them all to Rwanda".

The crime would be unprofitable if we introduced adequate legal forms of entry as we did for Ukrainians.

Can't blame them for taking advantage of our weakness and unutterly blind stupidity!

Why can’t we just make them work ? Other countries do
All that money spent on Rwanda and how many illegals immigrants sent there?

JennyCee

Why can’t we just make them work ? Other countries do
All that money spent on Rwanda and how many illegals immigrants sent there?

I agree it would be best if there were supervised work schemes, but that does cost an awful lot to set up.

Would the public actually pay that, or welcome it despite the extra cost?

JennyCee

Why can’t we just make them work ? Other countries do
All that money spent on Rwanda and how many illegals immigrants sent there?

People seeking asylum are not permitted to work. In some cases even volunteering is problematic.

They are not allowed. So despite being an eye surgeon, a farmer ,a nanny....they languish for years in "the system"

Sadgrandma

I don’t understand why he was allowed to stay if his asylum application had been rejected. Why wasn’t he deported immediately especially given his criminal record. Am I missing something?

The way it works is that they go to court and get refused, but until the court then do paperwork for the deportation order they can appeal again and again. The final arrest warrant is then issued but by then they have walked out of court and disappeared. You could not make it up!

It is not a given that a criminal will be deported unless the sentencing judge is a) given the information that they are non-nationals and b) thinks to add deportation to their sentence

What I do not understand is that they arrive from a safe country - France - they have travelled through other safe countries - Italy, Greece Spain - so they are not in danger there, so why are we not bouncing them back to claim there. If a Frenchman pitched up on our shores asking to stay, we would send him packing.

We are short of a number of occupations, why are we not going to the camps and cherry picking English speaking professionals