A convicted criminal who arrived on a small boat was given a taxpayer-funded flat — and used it to orchestrate the transport of thousands more
When officers from the National Crime Agency raided the suburban London apartment of Ahmed Ebid, they discovered two notebooks. One appeared to be a ledger of payments, while the other was stuffed with longitude and latitude co-ordinates in the Mediterranean. The discovery in June 2023 would help the NCA to unmask Ebid as one of Britain’s most prolific and ruthless people smugglers.
On Monday, he is expected to receive a long prison sentence at Southwark crown court in south London, after becoming the first person in Britain to be convicted of smuggling migrants across the Mediterranean.
