Convicted people smuggler living in UK while claiming asylum, BBC investigation reveals

Twana Jamal was sweeping the pavement outside a mini-mart in Blaby, a village of six thousand people on the edge of Leicester, when the BBC confronted him about his past. He was dressed smartly in jeans and what looked like a cashmere coat. Ten years earlier, in a French courtroom, he had stood flanked by police in a weightlifter's vest, convicted of being one of the most prolific people smugglers ever caught in Europe. Prosecutors had called him the godfather of the migrant camps near Dunkirk. He had earned up to £100,000 a week moving illegal immigrants across the Channel. Now, in 2026, he was living in the UK, working without permission, driving without a licence, and claiming asylum under a false name.

Jamal's conviction came in 2016, after operating out of the Grand Synthe camp from roughly 2012 onwards. He charged customers between £4,500 and £5,000 for passage to Britain, back when freight lorries were the preferred method of crossing. In the camps, they called him Pasha—a Turkish word for someone of high rank. He used so many aliases that prosecutors said he would write his assumed name inside his baseball cap so he would remember who he was supposed to be. The French court found him guilty and ordered his deportation to Iraqi Kurdistan after his release. Instead, he entered the UK.

A tip-off this year led the BBC to trace him to Blaby, where he was working at two mini-marts called Candy Corner, positioned metres apart on opposite sides of the high street. During an undercover visit to one of the shops, he introduced himself as Sultan and worked the till. A tattoo on the back of his hand matched one visible on his social media, where he called himself Sultan Pasha. Over several days, investigators watched him both working inside the stores and driving a car without a valid licence—neither of which he should have been doing if genuinely claiming asylum.

When confronted with a photograph from his 2016 French court appearance, Jamal did not deny it was him. But when asked if it proved he had been arrested, he shrugged: "I don't care." He denied working at the mini-mart despite having been seen behind the till and moving stock. He refused to provide his name, though he said the Home Office knew it. When asked about driving without a licence, his response was blunt: "So what? Did I hit you?" During a recorded phone call arranged under false pretences, he had boasted to a contact that he and his associates controlled Leicester. "We know everyone in this city, this city is ours," he said. He claimed to be making good money and mentioned work "moving cigarettes" from a warehouse. He also said he was not worried about investigation. "No-one touches us here," he told the contact. "Even the police won't stop you."

Jamal's case is not unique. Law enforcement officials across mainland Europe have told the BBC that at least fifteen other convicted people smugglers are now living in the UK under false names. One man convicted in France is selling used cars in Manchester and is believed to still be involved in smuggling. Another, also with a French conviction, is based in Blackpool, has claimed asylum under a false identity, and boasts on social media of being granted leave to remain. The pattern points to a systemic gap in border security.

The problem traces directly to Brexit. Before the UK left the European Union, immigration officers could check criminal records across member states. Now, without a data-sharing agreement with many EU countries, verifying the criminal history of asylum seekers has become significantly harder. Lucy Morton of the Immigration Services Union explained the consequence: "If we were able to share databases, even if just with our nearest neighbours, with Germany, with Belgium, with Holland and France, say—then, yes, we'd know that they had a conviction for people smuggling." Asylum seekers are fingerprinted on arrival and checked against UK police databases, but those databases do not contain convictions from other countries. The law itself contains a safeguard: anyone who has spent twelve months or more in prison overseas should face mandatory refusal of an asylum claim. Yet Jamal's criminal record may not have been checked, or he may have successfully used a false name to obscure it.

The Home Office responded to the investigation by stating that all asylum claimants undergo mandatory security checks and that the UK maintains agreements with several countries for sharing criminal records. It also noted that immigration enforcement action is currently at its highest level in history, with arrests for illegal working up eighty-three percent. But the case of Twana Jamal—the man once described as the godfather of the French camps, now working in a village shop and claiming asylum while the system struggles to verify who he really is—suggests those measures are not yet sufficient to catch everyone who should not be here.