How we located the most sought smuggler of migrants in Europe

How we located the most sought smuggler of migrants in Europe

Seated before me in an Iraqi shopping center is one of the most infamous people-smugglers in Europe.

Barzan Majeed is his name, and law enforcement agencies throughout the world, including the UK, are looking for him.

During our talk here and at his office the next day, he claims he has no idea how many refugees he has helped cross the English Channel.

"Ten thousand, maybe a thousand. I'm not sure; I didn't count.

What looked like an insurmountable job a few months ago has come to a head with the meeting.

I had gone in search of and to interview the guy known as Scorpion with the help of Rob Lawrie, a former soldier who now works with refugees.

He and his group dominated the majority of the people-smuggling business over the English Channel for a number of years using trucks and boats.

Since 2018, more than 70 migrants have lost their lives trying to cross by boat; five of them, including a seven-year-old child, perished off the French coast last month.

Although the trip is risky, the smugglers may make a lot of money from it.

They have the ability to charge £6,000 per person for a boat trip, and since about 30,000 people are expected to try it in 2023, there is clearly room for profit.

We had first been interested in Scorpion because of a little child we had met at a camp for migrants in northern France, not far from Calais.

Attempting to cross the English Channel in an inflatable dinghy, she had nearly perished.

The 19 individuals aboard the inexpensive, second-hand dinghy that was purchased in Belgium were not wearing life jackets, and it was not seaworthy.

Who would send individuals in such a manner out to sea?

In the UK, when police apprehend undocumented immigrants, they seize and examine their cell phones.

From 2016 forward, the same figure continued to appear.

It was often kept in storage under the name "Scorpion." Occasionally, it might be saved as an image of a scorpion.

Senior investigator Martin Clarke of the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) informed us that investigators began to realize "Scorpion" was a reference to Barzan Majeed, a Kurdish man living in Iraq.

In 2006, Majeed had been brought into England as a 20-year-old via the back of a vehicle. He spent many more years in the UK, some of them behind bars for drug and weapons offenses, even though he was denied permission to stay there a year later.

In 2015, he was ultimately deported to Iraq. Soon after, Majeed is said to have "inherited" his older brother's people-smuggling operation while he was incarcerated in Belgium.

Majeed took up the name Scorpion.

Scorpion's gang is said to have dominated a large portion of the people-smuggling industry between Europe and the UK between 2016 and 2021. 

Following a two-year global police investigation, 26 gang members were found guilty in UK, France, and Belgium courts.

However, Scorpion absconded from custody and fled.

He was prosecuted in Belgium while he was away and found guilty on 121 charges of human smuggling. He was given a 10-year prison term and a €968,000 (£834,000) fine in October 2022.

Scorpion's current location were a mystery. It was this riddle that we aimed to solve.

Rob's source put us in touch with an Iranian guy who claimed to have worked with Scorpion while he was attempting to cross the Channel. Scorpion had disclosed to the Iranian that he was remotely managing his firm from his base in Turkey.

We located Majeed's older brother, who is now out of prison, in Belgium. He said that Scorpion was probably in Turkey.

Turkey serves as a crucial hub for the majority of migrants on route to the United Kingdom. Its immigration regulations make it comparatively simple for people from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa to get a visa and visit the nation.

We found a café in Istanbul where people smugglers frequented thanks to a tip. It was where Barzan Majeed had been seen lately.

Our first attempts at inquiry did not go well. The café became silent when we asked the manager if he could tell us about the trade.

Not too long later, a guy walked by our table and took off his jacket to reveal a rifle. It served as a warning that these were dangerous individuals.

Our following visit had even more encouraging outcomes. It was reported to us that Majeed had just put €200,000 (£172,000) into a money exchange a few blocks from here. We left our number there, and the next night Rob's phone called in the middle of the night.

A person posing as Barzan Majeed was on the other end of the conversation, and the caller ID said "Number withheld."

There was no time to capture the start of the call since it was so unexpected and late. The person on the telephone said, "I hear you're looking for me," Rob recounted. I then ask, "Who are you?" Scorpion? "Ha, you want to call me that?" he asks. That's OK.

Although it was impossible to determine whether this was the genuine Barzan Majeed, the information he provided was consistent with what we already knew. He claimed to have lived in Nottingham until his deportation in 2015. However, he denied having any connection to the trafficking industry.

"This is not accurate!" he objected. "Not more than the media,"

We gently probed, but he offered no hint as to where he was, and the connection kept cutting out.

We didn't know if or when he would give us another call. Rob's local source informed us that Scorpion was now engaged in the illegal transportation of migrants from Turkey to Greece and Italy.

It was unsettling what we heard. Yachts permitted to transport a maximum of twelve passengers were being crammed with up to one hundred men, women, and children.

Smugglers without sailing expertise would often operate the yachts, which they would navigate dangerously between groups of tiny islands in order to elude coast guard patrols.

Large sums of money might be made. It was reported that each passenger was paying around €10,000 to board one of these vessels. It is estimated that about 720,000 migrants had tried to enter Europe across the eastern Mediterranean during the previous ten years; over 2,500 of them perished, the majority of them from drowning.

The traffickers put people's lives in grave risk, according to Julia Schafermeyer of the organization SOS Mediterranean: "I don't think it makes any difference to them whether these people live or die."

We got the opportunity to ask Scorpion this question directly about this moment. Unexpectedly, he gave us another call.

He denied being a smuggler once again. But by definition, he meant someone who did the work with their hands rather than someone who held the strings.

He informed us, "You have to be there," and, "Even now, I'm not there."

He claimed to be only the "money man."

Majeed also didn't appear to care all that much about refugees who perished.

He added, "God [writes it down] when you're going to die, but sometimes this is your fault." "Go into the boat—God doesn't say that never.”

We proceeded to the resort of Marmaris, where the Turkish police informed us that they thought Scorpion had a property. After we made some inquiries, someone indicated they had been friends with him over the phone.

She added that Majeed was aware of his involvement in people-smuggling and that, despite his stress, his concern was for the money rather than the safety of the migrants.

"That's really sad, isn't it, that he didn't care about them?" said she. "When I reflect on it, I feel a little guilty because I heard things and knew they weren't right."

She continued by saying that while someone had informed her he may be in Iraq, she had not lately seen him at his Marmaris property.

This was confirmed by another source, who claimed to have seen Scorpion in person at a currency exchange in Sulaymaniyah, an Iraqi city in the Kurdistan area.

We started moving. We made the decision to quit up if we were unable to locate Scorpion there.

However, Rob's contact was able to reach him. He was initially very wary, believing we had some kind of plot to kidnap him and send him back to Europe.

Thereafter, there was a swarm of text messages—first from Rob's contact, then from Rob himself. Scorpion said he may come see us, but only if he could choose the location. We disregarded it because we thought he may be playing us.

Then came a text message with the straightforward question, "Where are you?"

We pretended to be in route to a mall in the area. Scorpion instructed us to meet him at the ground floor coffee shop.

We finally got to see him.

Barzan Majeed seemed to be a wealthy golfer. He wore a light blue shirt, black gilet, and brand-new pants. He looked well-groomed.

I saw that his fingernails were neatly clipped as he placed his hands on the table.

Three guys sat down at an adjacent table in the meanwhile. His protection detail, we surmised.

He refuted once again being a prominent figure at the head of a criminal organization. Other gang members, he said, had attempted to incriminate him.

"After being detained, a few individuals claim to be working for him. They want fewer sentences.

He also seemed resentful of other smugglers who continued to operate using British passports.

He claims that "one guy sent 170 or 180 people from Turkey to Italy in three days, still carrying a British passport!" "I want to go abroad to do business. I am unable to.

He reiterated what he had stated over the phone when we questioned him about his role in the deaths of migrants: that he just collected the money and made reservations.

He defined a smuggler as someone who loaded people into trucks and boats and transported them, saying, "I never kill anybody and I never put anybody in a boat."

When they hung up, Scorpion offered Rob to visit the money exchange in Sulaymaniyah, where he worked.

It was a modest office with a few cell phone numbers and some Arabic writing on the glass. To pay for their journey, people came here. Rob claimed to have seen a guy carrying a cash box when he was there.

This time, Scorpion discussed how he entered the industry in 2016, at a time when tens of thousands of people were traveling to Europe.

Nobody compelled them to do so. They want to," he said. "They begged the smugglers to do this for them, please, please." The smugglers may sometimes declare, "I will help them just for the love of God." Then they grumble, saying things like "Oh this, that." No, it is not accurate.

Scorpion acknowledged handling millions of euros while serving as one of the two primary figures overseeing activities in Belgium and France between 2016 and 2019.

"I kind of did them things." I stood between money, location, passengers, and smugglers.

Although he denied being active in people-smuggling, his behavior seemed to indicate otherwise.

Scorpion was not aware of it, but Rob saw the screen's reflection in a glossy photo frame on the wall behind him as he flipped through his phone.

Rob was able to see lists of passport numbers. Later on, we discovered that they were sent to Iraqi authorities by smugglers. After that, they would be bought off to give out fictitious visas, allowing migrants to enter Turkey.

Scorpion was gone from our view after that.

We kept the UK and European authorities informed of our findings at every turn.

Scorpion's conviction was aided by Ann Lukowiak, a Belgian public prosecutor, who remains hopeful that Scorpion will eventually be extradited from Iraq.

"We feel it's important to have communicated that you are not free to do as you please," she explains. "We'll defeat him in due course."