How we found Europe’s most wanted migrant-smuggler

I am sitting in a shopping mall in Iraq, face-to-face with one of Europe’s most notorious people-smugglers.

His name is Barzan Majeed, and he is wanted by police forces in several countries, including the UK.

Over the course of our conversation - both here and the next day at his office - he says he does not know how many migrants he has transported across the English Channel.

“Maybe a thousand, maybe 10,000. I don’t know, I didn’t count.”

The meeting is the culmination of what had seemed like an impossible task a few months earlier.

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Together with Rob Lawrie, a former soldier who works with refugees, I had set out to find and question the man known as Scorpion.

For several years, he and his gang controlled much of the people-smuggling trade - in boats and lorries - across the English Channel.

More than 70 migrants have died making crossing by boat since 2018 - last month, five people were killed off the French coast, including a seven-year-old girl.

It is a dangerous journey, but for the smugglers it can be very lucrative.

They can charge £6,000 per person for a boat crossing - and with nearly 30,000 people attempting it in 2023, the potential for profit is obvious.

Our interest in Scorpion had begun with a little girl we met in one of the migrant camps near Calais, in northern France.

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She had almost died trying to cross the English Channel in an inflatable dinghy.

The dinghy was not seaworthy - it was cheap, bought second-hand in Belgium - and the 19 people on board had no lifejackets.

Who would send people out to sea like this?

When police in the UK pick up illegal migrants, they take and inspect their mobile phones.

From 2016 onwards, the same number kept cropping up.

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