Two British men have today been handed lengthy prison sentences after prosecutors successfully argued in court that they played a leading role in an illegal immigration “business” after they claimed to only be acting as middle men who were not seeking to make money.

Ali Khdir, 42, and Dilshad Shamo, 43, were charged by prosecutors from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for helping at least 409 non-EU nationals get to Italy, Germany, Croatia, and Romania illegally, often via Turkey, in 2022 and 2023.

Khdir and Shamo were both sentenced to a total of 19 years' imprisonment today at Cardiff Crown Court.

Despite pleading guilty, they both argued they should get lower sentences because of the lesser role they claimed to have played in the organised immigration crime group.

They claimed they made no profit from their activities, that their criminality was limited to the movement of a small number of migrants often friends and relatives, and neither initially accepted that any migrants had successfully been moved into Europe. Shamo later admitted that no more than 10 people had been brought into Europe and that he did receive a small amount of money for his assistance but no payment or commission.

Over three-days of legal argument at Cardiff Crown Court known as a Newton hearing, the CPS successfully argued that Khdir and Shamo were in fact controlling an organised and sophisticated international conspiracy to illegally move large numbers of people into and through Europe.

This included numerous messages and voicemails where they refer to being in ‘control’ of operations, to ‘my’ drivers and ‘my’ people and ‘my’ business. They talk to others in the conspiracy as being responsible for identifying safe routes into Europe, allocating groups of migrants to those routes, hiring and supplying drivers and facilitators, and organising the flow of money.

At times they went on location to facilitate their operations.

Kate Hurst from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “We didn’t accept the basis on which Ali Khdir and Dilshad Shamo admitted their guilt because they tried to minimise their leading role in seeking to bring hundreds of migrants illegally into Europe.

“The court accepted our evidence and has handed down sentences that they both deserve. 

“This prosecution couldn’t have been possible without the hard work of officers from the National Crime Agency and international cooperation from our overseas partners.

“Only by working together and sharing information in this way can we disrupt and defeat organised immigration gangs.”

NCA Branch Commander Derek Evans said: “Our long-running investigation showed Khdir and Shamo were working around the clock to orchestrate the movement of migrants across Europe. We believe they smuggled more than 400 people in a period of just six months. 

“While on the surface they portrayed themselves as successful businessmen running a car wash from Caerphilly, they were actually leading an entirely separate life as part of a criminal network.

“The NCA will continue in our work to tackle organised immigration crime and bring criminals involved at every step of the route to justice.”

Both men had been arrested in Newport, Wales in October 2023 by officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) and charged by the CPS with five immigration offences each. 

They initially pleaded not guilty but on day 10 of their trial at Cardiff Crown Court in November 2024 they entered guilty pleas to all the offences.