Europe’s most-wanted people smuggler nicknamed the Scorpion has been found in Iraq.
Barzan Majeed, who lived in the UK before being deported, was described as looking like a rich golf player.
He remains wanted by police in both Britain and the EU.
Majeed assisted thousands of illegal immigrants embarking on the perilous 21-mile journey across the Channel, a BBC investigation has revealed.
He said: “Maybe a thousand, maybe 10,000. I don’t know, I didn’t count.”
Majeed, a self-proclaimed “money-man”, insisted they had begged him to get them to Europe and he denied being a gang boss.
The migrant crisis continues to grip the UK, with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer putting up an alternative plan to Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda strategy.
More than 70 migrants have died trying to cross the Channel since 2018, including five during an incident last month.
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Nearly 30,000 people attempted the crossing in 2023, with many paying as much as £6,000 each to attempt the dangerous journey.
Majeed and his gang controlled much of the trade, shipping migrants to the UK from Europe by boat and lorries.
Police investigating the situation claimed the name “Scorpion” kept cropping up ever since 2016.
Officers eventually realised that Scorpion was Kurdish-Iraqi Barzan Majeed.
Majeed illegally entered the UK in the back of a lorry in 2006 and was deported to Iraq in 2015.
He had served prison sentences for both drug and gun offences.
Majeed later inherited his brother’s people-smuggling operation after his sibling was jailed in Belgium.
A total of 26 members of the gang were convicted in the UK, France and Belgium.
A Belgian court convicted Majeed of 121 counts of people smuggling in his absence.
He was sentenced to a decade in jail and fined £834,000 in October 2022.
A BBC journalist and a volunteer aid worker traced him to Turkey and later to Iraq.
Ann Lukowiak, a public prosecutor in Belgium, said she hoped he would be extradited one day.
“It’s important to us to have sent the signal that you can’t do what you want,” Majeed said. “We will eventually take him down.”
