It’s believed to be the first UK conviction for organising crossings from north Africa.
42 year-old Egyptian national Ahmed Ebid, who made millions, admitted a string of immigration offences following his arrest in 2023.
Tania November from the Crown Prosecution Service says he had no compassion for people on board the vessels.
In one conversation, recorded by National Crime Agency surveillance officers, Ebid told an associate that migrants were not allowed to carry phones with them on his boats as he sought to avoid law enforcement.
“Tell them guys anyone caught with a phone will be killed, threw in the sea,” he said.
One crossing in October 2022 saw more than 640 migrants rescued by the Italian authorities after they attempted to cross in a wooden boat from Libya. It was taken into port in Sicily. Two bodies were recovered.
In another, 265 migrants were rescued by the Italian coastguard from a 20-metre fishing boat found adrift in the Mediterranean in early December 2022. The boat had left Benghazi in Libya.
And in April 2023 two further search and rescue operations were mounted following distress calls to the coastguard and in each case more than 600 migrants were on board each boat.
The NCA has worked closely with the Italian Guardia di Finanza and Italian Coastguard as part of the investigation, to evidence Ebid’s involvement in at least seven separate crossings in 2022 and 2023 which carried almost 3,800 people into Italian waters.
Each migrant had been charged an average of around £3,200, netting the criminals involved more than £12 million in total.
On a phone seized from him after arrest investigators found images of boats, conversations about the possible purchase of vessels, videos of migrants making the journey, and screenshots detailing money transfers.
Ebid pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to assist illegal immigration in October 2023, but claimed he was only a low-ranking member of the network.
