Labour told to make rapid deportation as 'Godfather of smugglers' claims asylum in UK after boasting ‘this city is ours’

A convicted people smuggler who was described as "the Godfather" of French migrant camps is now seeking asylum in the UK.

Twana Jamal, 46, has been tracked down in the Leicestershire village of Blaby, where he was working illegally under a fake name.

Back in 2016, French authorities imprisoned Twana Jamal, 46, for five years when he was labelled one of the most prolific people smugglers.

Now, Jamal, tracked down by the BBC, is leading a double life under a fake name in the UK.

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Lawyers said the Iraqi Kurd was pocketing £100,000-a-week ferrying hundreds of migrants from northern France to British shores via illegal routes.

Charging migrants somewhere between £4,500 and £5,000, Jamal organised ways for migrants to sneak into the UK from 2012 until 2016.

Jamal seems to have slipped through the border control system to gain entry into the UK, where he is now running a mini-mart business with one shop on a Leicester high street.

In normal circumstances, anyone imprisoned for longer than a year abroad would be denied entry into Britain.

Asylum seekers have their fingerprints taken when arriving in the UK. However, while the prints are checked against police databases in Britain, convictions from other nations do not appear.

Officers blamed Brexit for making it harder for authorities to check criminal records from people in other countries.

"If we were able to share databases, even if just with our nearest neighbours, with Germany, with Belgium, with Holland and France, say - then, yes, we'd know that they had a conviction for people smuggling," Lucy Moreton, an officer at the Immigration Services Union said.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp ripped into the "shocking" discovery this morning.

"He is literally laughing at us," the Croydon MP seethed.

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"This is why we need to leave the ECHR so these people can be rapidly deported without a court process and without claiming asylum."

Jamal admitted that he was driving without a licence and, when approached by a BBC journalist undercover, boasting "this city is ours" as he revealed he was claiming asylum there.

"No one touches us here. Even the police won't stop you," the man, who claimed to make "good money" gloated.

Jamal's previous criminal activity was connected to a group of Kurdish people-smuggling gangs for more than 15 years.

However, the asylum seeker insisted he had been living in the UK since 2009.

French lawyers said that, as a people smuggler, he had so many aliases that he woul often write his name on the inside of a baseball cap to jog his memory.

When confronted by the broadcaster, he denied any involvement in people-smuggling gangs and resisted claims that he had been jailed.

A Home Office spokesman said: "All asylum claimants are subject to mandatory security checks to confirm their identity for the purpose of immigration, security and criminality checks."

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