The founder of a charity purporting to help asylum seekers in Britain has been jailed after secretly extorting money from vulnerable migrants who ended up working in cannabis farms.
Pranvera Smith, 47, described herself as ‘La Nonna’ - an Albanian mafia ‘grandmother’ - to intimidate vulnerable asylum seekers into handing over money after being trafficked into the UK.
She set up the Freedom to Stay group in 2014 and secured £10,000 of charitable cash but was secretly using the organisation as a front to launder proceeds from a human trafficking and extortion racket.
Smith and her partner Flamur Daka, 44, were building an operation to traffic 30 Albanians a month in the back of trucks via the port of Ghent, Belgium, to the UK, police said.
Once they arrived in Birmingham, she bullied some 130 immigrants into paying around £1,000 each in just the first six months of 2020, supposedly in exchange for help to navigate the UK welfare system. If they could not pay, she would withhold their documents.
Many of the immigrants ended up working for less than the statutory minimum wage in car washes and some were rescued from cannabis farms, West Midlands police said.
Smith and Daka used the money to set up a Mediterranean restaurant in Birmingham and on houses in Turkey and Albania.
The pair admitted drugs and immigration offences at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday. Smith was jailed for five years and four months while Daka was sentenced to four years.
Detective Chief Inspector Will Henley said: “These were cynical, calculating crimes. Smith and Daka positioned themselves as big-hearted, charitable people who wanted to help very vulnerable people.
“In reality they were traffickers and abusers.
“Smith liked to describe herself as ‘La Nonna’ to ensure people knew she wasn’t a person to be messed with.”
The biog
Job: Fitness entrepreneur, body-builder and trainer
Favourite superhero: Batman
Favourite quote: We must become the change we want to see, by Mahatma Gandhi.
Favourite car: Lamborghini
Results
Women finals: 48kg - Urantsetseg Munkhbat (MGL) bt Distria Krasniqi (KOS); 52kg - Odette Guiffrida (ITA) bt Majlinda Kelmendi (KOS); 57kg - Nora Gjakova (KOS) bt Anastasiia Konkina (Rus)
Men’s finals: 60kg - Amiran Papinashvili (GEO) bt Francisco Garrigos (ESP); 66kg - Vazha Margvelashvili (Geo) bt Yerlan Serikzhanov (KAZ)
Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
Read more about the coronavirus
Expo details
Expo 2020 Dubai will be the first World Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia
The world fair will run for six months from October 20, 2020 to April 10, 2021.
It is expected to attract 25 million visits
Some 70 per cent visitors are projected to come from outside the UAE, the largest proportion of international visitors in the 167-year history of World Expos.
More than 30,000 volunteers are required for Expo 2020
The site covers a total of 4.38 sqkm, including a 2 sqkm gated area
It is located adjacent to Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai South
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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