A wanted people smuggler has been tracked down and arrested in Coventry by the National Crime Agency.
Officers detained 55-year-old Asat Sulieman Mohammad in the Gulson Road area of the city on the evening of Tuesday 1 July.
Mohammad, an Iraqi-born British national, was convicted of people smuggling and being a member of an organised crime group by a court in Ghent, Belgium, in January 2025, but fled before he could be sentenced. He was subsequently given a five-year jail term and 224,000 Euro fine in his absence.
His conviction came as the result of a Belgian police investigation, supported by the NCA.
It found that Mohammad was involved in smuggling migrants to the UK from Belgium, collecting them when they arrived, and then arranging for payments to be made back to other smugglers via the Hawala banking system.
Investigators were able to link Mohammad with a number of attempts to bring migrants to the UK in refrigerated lorries through the port of Zeebrugge.
In one case, in October 2019, Belgian police rescued more than 20 Iraqi and Iranian migrants, including a number of children, who had been locked inside a trailer for more than three days. Distressed, they were found after banging on the inside walls for help.
Mohammad fled Belgium before he was sentenced, triggering a manhunt. NCA officers were brought in to locate him, and were able to track him down in the Coventry area, where specialist officers from the NCA’s Joint International Crime Centre extradition unit last night arrested him.
Following his arrest Mohammad will be taken to Westminster Magistrates where he is due to appear as extradition proceedings to have him returned to Belgium get under way.
Gill Duggan, Head of Europe for NCA International, said:
“Asat Mohammad was convicted in Belgium for playing an important role in the smuggling of migrants to the UK. We will now seek to return him there to serve his prison sentence and ensure justice is done.
“The methods used by Mohammad and his co-conspirators risked the lives of those they transported. In one case migrants, including children, were locked inside sealed lorries for days on end.
“This demonstrates the callous nature of people smuggling gangs who treat people as a commodity to profit from.
“Working with international partners, including Belgium, we are determined to do all we can to target, disrupt and dismantle the criminal networks involved.”
2 July 2025
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