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People smuggler convicted in France found by BBC living in UK and seeking asylum · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I've reported on immigration crime for more than a decade
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and it's a story that's grown from migrants in lorries
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and small boats to the UK's towns and high streets
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: where money made by smugglers has found a home. This
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: is the man we're searching for, Twana Jamal. When he
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: was jailed in France ten years ago, please said he
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: was the most successful smuggler in history. He made millions
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: from the trade, and we think he's made a new
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: life for himself here in Leicestershire. He's even bragged to
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: friends in secret that he controls this place. He didn't
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: know those conversations were being recorded. These are his words
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: in translation.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Don't worry if you get a ticket from the police,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I will pay it for you. Don't worry about anything
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: in the city. We know everyone in the city. This
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: city is ours. I don't have a driving license. All
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: I'm doing is e lead by. It's okay because all
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: this area is mine. They're not gonna catch me or anything.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: We think Twana Jamal is claiming asylum in the UK.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: We've tracked him to Hear, a village high street outside Leicester,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: where he and his brother are running vape and sweet shops,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: including one next door to the office of the local MP.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: With my colleague Rob Lauri, we're watching to see how
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: it's run, the people and the vans that come and go.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: I've got eyes right on him now you yeah, yeah,
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: it's it's just been arranging the chairs.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Twana Jamal was once dubbed the King of the Jungle.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It referred to the Calais Jungle, the largest migrant camp
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: in France. At its peak, eight thousand people lived there,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and Jamal helped thousands of them to enter the UK
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: hidden in Lorri's He was jailed in France in twenty sixteen,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and French police believed he was fun some of the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: millions of pounds he made into small businesses in the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: UK planning for his retirement. We think Twana Jamal is
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: doing it here in Leicestershire. He's from Iraqi, Kurdistan, and
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: on this short high street in the village of Blaby
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: there are several Kurdish businesses, the kind of thing you
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: find up and down the country.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: And you're mentioning a couple of news stores that have opened.
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: What are they?
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's like an American candy place, which is
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: are you going and it's like it's weird, And then
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: there's another store opened it it's exactly the same. So
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: it's kind of like, again, I'm not sure why baby
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: needs to have two of those kind of shops.
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: You need a lot of money to open one shop,
• 2:47
  Speaker 6: and they all seem to be linked.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: How are they doing it and do they make them
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: things work?
• 2:52
  Speaker 6: Do you ever wonder what we really know about the
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: people that are only news stores?
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it does feel kind of like a little bit unknown. Yeah,
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: a little bit secret, isn't it.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing online that links Twine and Jamal to
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: any of the shops he's running.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Go to the photograph we took from Tis, So.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: We need to identify him in person.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: So one of the best things we've got is a
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: picture of him in court.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: He's just been sentenced to five years in prison.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: There we make an identification now ten years.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: First of all, he's got a very distinctive hairline. It
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: is skilled down. Look at that on his.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: Hands, so it's like a tattoo.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: It almost looks like a cannon pointing down. So he's
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: had some work done on it, I think to cover
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: it up.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: He's got a distinctive kink in his ear.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: So those three things is how we're going to identify
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: him all this time later, because this guy is in
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: the UK.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: When we're confident it's him from a distance, Rob goes
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: into one of the shops and films undercover. The so
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: called King of Smugglers is calling himself Sultan to customers.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: We think to claim asylum. He's just changed his surname.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: The Home Office says it carries out mandatory security checks
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: to work out who people are and to check for
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: criminal backgrounds, but it doesn't say what checks it makes
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: for security reasons.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: What's well, we've actually got himself.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: I shot his hand because I wanted to see can
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: you see him at a distance?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: We watch how he's living between two addresses.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: We're going to try and get in there.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: The main one has metal gates and parking for several
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: vans hidden from view.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: So there he is.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: There's our man.
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  Speaker 1: A building site on the same street is as close
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: as we can get.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Absol by what thirty foot hedge.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: With everything we've learned, we watch and wait to choose
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: our moment.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: I'm so Mitchell from BBC News.
• 5:12
  Speaker 6: I investigate people smugglers do The Home Office know your
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: real identity, Twana Jamal. The Home Office know that you're
• 5:20
  Speaker 6: a convicted people smuggler.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: Smuggler, Yeah, I never the Twana.
• 5:24
  Speaker 6: Jamal we saw convicted in France in twenty sixteen. The
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: courts in France estimate you were the most prolific people
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: smuggler they'd come across.
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: You earn't more than a million pounds?
• 5:36
  Speaker 7: What's the proof?
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: What's the proof?
• 5:38
  Speaker 6: Court documents? Here, I can take you through pages of
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: court documents. Every crime agency in Europe was searching for you.
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: Why are you claiming asylum? Why do you want to
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: be in Britain.
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  Speaker 7: I've been here for a long long time.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, why why do you want to be in this country?
• 5:53
  Speaker 7: Because I was not saying that in my country and
• 5:55
  Speaker 7: then I come to this country.
• 5:57
  Speaker 6: You came to this country via France, where you spent
• 5:59
  Speaker 6: years people smuggling. You don't one of the biggest people
• 6:01
  Speaker 6: smuggling networks. We know you're past. What's happened to all
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: the money you made from your smuggling? Which money, well,
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: the court estimated you made a million pounds in one
• 6:12
  Speaker 6: year alone, one million pounds.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: You know, well, if you're half proof of why attack
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: in the court.
• 6:20
  Speaker 7: If you have any videotapes, photos, I mean, statements of anything,
• 6:26
  Speaker 7: bring it, do whatever you want to do.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: And you've not been granted asylum in this country, have you?
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: So?
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: I'm yeah, and you're here running a business. No, I'm
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: not running business. You come to work day in day out.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: We've watched you maneuver around Leicester. No, I'm talking to.
• 6:41
  Speaker 7: You talking about I'll be back.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: I'm not running with one second pie these guys, this
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: is you in France.
• 6:50
  Speaker 7: I don't get when.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: When was that twenty sixteen? You know when that was
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: years ago? What do you do with me now? So?
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: Did you tell the Home Office about your criminal conviction?
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: If I did something they all know that the Home Office. No,
• 7:05
  Speaker 7: if I did something right, they must know.
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: Do you think it's right that the people here in
• 7:11
  Speaker 6: this community are coming into the shop and not knowing
• 7:13
  Speaker 6: your criminal past.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: You've been here day in day out. I'm not.
• 7:20
  Speaker 6: Your brother is the named person on these company accounts?
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: Have you told the Home Office right your criminal convictions?
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: Have you state if.
• 7:29
  Speaker 7: I did something anything wrong? Everyone knows that I never
• 7:35
  Speaker 7: did nothing.
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: You're driving around this city with so what did I
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: hit you? Is that the definition of a good driver.
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: Do you think you can come to Britain and.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: That like that?
• 7:47
  Speaker 7: I've been here almost twenty years illegally.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: We've been here a long time illegally.
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  Speaker 7: Really see, that's how they keep lying and write make
• 7:58
  Speaker 7: people of this country to hate migrants from their lives.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: People in this country want people.
• 8:03
  Speaker 6: Smugglers who are convicted are really serious crimes.
• 8:06
  Speaker 7: Who was doing serious crimes? You really you're doing serious
• 8:10
  Speaker 7: crimes without any evidence. You just come to me without
• 8:13
  Speaker 7: without any proof. You just come to me.
• 8:15
  Speaker 6: We've heard that you think you control this city? Why
• 8:18
  Speaker 6: would you say that?
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  Speaker 4: Why?
• 8:19
  Speaker 7: Why Pablo bar am I Tony Montana, Am I part
• 8:24
  Speaker 7: of government to control the city? What are you talking about?
• 8:26
  Speaker 7: Come on?
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Because of the money, I guess the millions sugglers.
• 8:31
  Speaker 7: If if I had millions right.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: Where is your money now?
• 8:34
  Speaker 7: I wouldn't be here, I think you right? If I
• 8:37
  Speaker 7: had millions right, I wouldn't be here for even minute.
• 8:41
  Speaker 6: You're building a chain of businesses here in this city.
• 8:46
  Speaker 7: There's two I'm just please go ask immigration and almost this.
• 8:50
  Speaker 7: When did man come to this country?
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I'm sure, but what name did you use? When
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: you name?
• 8:57
  Speaker 7: I have one name here?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: One?
• 9:00
  Speaker 7: What name, Go ask them my name.
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: Well, you won't give me your name.
• 9:05
  Speaker 7: Not you, because I never did nothing and I don't care.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Tuila Jamal denied working in the shop despite us watching
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: him do it for days. He denied building a chain
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: of businesses and refused to give his name, saying the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Home Office would know if he'd committed any offense. The
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Home Office told us it has a number of agreements
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: with other countries to share criminal record information, and the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: immigration enforcement is at its highest level in history. No
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: one here has suspected that a smuggler who'd made millions
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: was serving them in their local shop. Now the focus
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: is on how many others might be hiding behind businesses
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: in the UK. Sue Mitchell, BBC News