A trafficking kingpin who smuggled 10,000 migrants across the English Channel in small boats, earning up to £260,000 per trip, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison in Belgium.
Hewa Rahimpur, 30, arrived in the UK in the back of a lorry and claimed asylum. He is described as an Iranian ethnic Kurd but The National has been told that he is in fact from Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and concealed his identity.
Investigators say he turned to people-smuggling when he saw the profits that could be made after paying to come to Britain.
The UK’s National Crime Agency seized 60 boats and hundreds of life jackets from a warehouse in Germany used by the criminal operation run by Rahimpur from his house in the east of London.
Rahimpur was eventually arrested in May last year and was extradited to Belgium, where he stood trial in Bruges.
A judge has now found him guilty and sentenced him to 11 years in prison. Another 19 people were convicted alongside him and handed jail terms of between 30 months and eight years.
The NCA, the UK's equivalent of the FBI, said he had a callous disregard for the safety of those who paid up to £6000 to cross the Channel in boats packed with 40 migrants, after being lured by adverts openly posted on social media.
An investigation by The National revealed how death trap boats made in Turkey and transported across Europe are being used to transport migrants across the Channel.
Craig Turner, the NCA’s deputy head of investigations, said Rahimpur was one of the “most significant individuals running criminal groups involved in small boat crossings”.
“We estimate that his network was involved in the smuggling of around 10,000 people into the United Kingdom and at one point this may have been almost 10 per cent of all crossings across the Channel,” he said.
“These individuals were treated as a commodity. These criminal gangs do not care about the safety of those they transport.
“They are happy to put them in extremely dangerous and life-threatening situations and this is why disrupting and dismantling them remains a key priority for us.”
Mr Turner explained that Rahimpur first came to the attention of the NCA back in 2021 when he was linked to handling finances for people smugglers using the underground Hawala banking system. At the time he was operating under a different name.
Belgian police found a number of boats and outboard motors in the back of a car near the country’s border with France, in October 2021.
Sourcing of boats
Phone messages showed that the drivers had been in contact with a UK-based telephone number, engaging in conversations about the boat movements and locations for actual delivery. That number was eventually linked to Rahimpur.
The NCA then discovered he was involved in the sourcing and movement of boats across the whole of Europe.
He would direct other members of his criminal organisation to take the boats to northern French coast, where migrants would be transported.
Mr Turner said Rahimpur's criminal gang made between £175,000 and £260,000 per boat crossing, which he said was “pretty significant” and comparable to the money made by drug dealers, also from “vulnerable individuals”.
Rahimpur was arrested in a park and footage taken at the time shows him being taken out of his Mercedes car.
Kathryn Philpott, the senior investigating officer for the operation that brought down Rahimpur, said he came to the UK back in 2016, in what is believed to have been in a lorry, which may have spurred him on to become a people smuggler himself.
“I think he got involved in it because he probably saw how lucrative it was,” she said.
“He was entrepreneurial and decided to make money out of it. As he had paid money to get here himself.”
The investigators said the exact amount of money Rahimpur made “is very hard to calculate” as all transactions were made through the Hawala system and his money was continually moving around.
While he didn't appear to have any outward signs of an extravagant lifestyle he was buying a “very expensive car” at the time of his arrest, said Ms Philpott.
They admitted there would be people who have stepped into his shoes, but warned the NCA has about 90 immigration crime-related investigations open.
“We have got a multitude of significant operations being run by the National Crime Agency to target these criminal gangs,” Mr Turner said.
He also said while social media companies work to take down people smugglers' adverts, they kept appearing.
“It's a little bit like playing Whack a Mole. Once we've taken one down, another one comes up through the floor.”
The National talked to a source who described Rahimpur as a superficially charming but “brutal” criminal, who was also concealing his real identity.
“Rahimpur came to this country several years ago claiming to be from Iran but in actual fact he’s from Erbil,” said the source.
“And the name he’s been taken to court on, Rahimpur, is not his real name. That’s not uncommon.
“If you claim asylum you can never go back to that country so if he claimed asylum from Iraq then he wouldn’t be able to go back and visit family. So, what a lot of Iranians do is claim to be from Iraq and Iraqis claim to be from Iran.”
After initially operating as a Hawaladar, Rahimpur branched out into people smuggling.
“He started getting involved in the boat smuggling trade, buying boats from Turkey and shipping them to France and then have people on the ground, facilitating seats on the boat and selling them for an astronomical fee. But he became lackadaisical.”
Rahimpur was someone who came across as “being a polite, confident young man”, said the source.
“He was nice to everybody, really nice but at the end of the day he was turning over tens of millions and would instruct his facilitators to be quite brutal in their approach to securing people on their boats.”
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
Common OCD symptoms and how they manifest
Checking: the obsession or thoughts focus on some harm coming from things not being as they should, which usually centre around the theme of safety. For example, the obsession is “the building will burn down”, therefore the compulsion is checking that the oven is switched off.
Contamination: the obsession is focused on the presence of germs, dirt or harmful bacteria and how this will impact the person and/or their loved ones. For example, the obsession is “the floor is dirty; me and my family will get sick and die”, the compulsion is repetitive cleaning.
Orderliness: the obsession is a fear of sitting with uncomfortable feelings, or to prevent harm coming to oneself or others. Objectively there appears to be no logical link between the obsession and compulsion. For example,” I won’t feel right if the jars aren’t lined up” or “harm will come to my family if I don’t line up all the jars”, so the compulsion is therefore lining up the jars.
Intrusive thoughts: the intrusive thought is usually highly distressing and repetitive. Common examples may include thoughts of perpetrating violence towards others, harming others, or questions over one’s character or deeds, usually in conflict with the person’s true values. An example would be: “I think I might hurt my family”, which in turn leads to the compulsion of avoiding social gatherings.
Hoarding: the intrusive thought is the overvaluing of objects or possessions, while the compulsion is stashing or hoarding these items and refusing to let them go. For example, “this newspaper may come in useful one day”, therefore, the compulsion is hoarding newspapers instead of discarding them the next day.
Source: Dr Robert Chandler, clinical psychologist at Lighthouse Arabia
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
UAE%20v%20West%20Indies
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IPL 2018 FINAL
Sunrisers Hyderabad 178-6 (20 ovs)
Chennai Super Kings 181-2 (18.3 ovs)
Chennai win by eight wickets
Mina Cup winners
Under 12 – Minerva Academy
Under 14 – Unam Pumas
Under 16 – Fursan Hispania
Under 18 – Madenat
Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
CHATGPT%20ENTERPRISE%20FEATURES
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The bio
Studied up to grade 12 in Vatanappally, a village in India’s southern Thrissur district
Was a middle distance state athletics champion in school
Enjoys driving to Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah with family
His dream is to continue working as a social worker and help people
Has seven diaries in which he has jotted down notes about his work and money he earned
Keeps the diaries in his car to remember his journey in the Emirates
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Mica
Director: Ismael Ferroukhi
Stars: Zakaria Inan, Sabrina Ouazani
3 stars
Dengue%20fever%20symptoms
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Fixtures
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EWednesday%2C%20April%203%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EArsenal%20v%20Luton%20Town%2C%2010.30pm%20(UAE)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EManchester%20City%20v%20Aston%20Villa%2C%2011.15pm%20(UAE)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EThursday%2C%20April%204%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ELiverpool%20v%20Sheffield%20United%2C%2010.30pm%20(UAE)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EHakbah%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2018%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENaif%20AbuSaida%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESaudi%20Arabia%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E22%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%24200%2C000%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Epre-Series%20A%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EGlobal%20Ventures%20and%20Aditum%20Investment%20Management%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
