A notorious people-smuggling boss who reportedly made up to £100,000 a week bringing illegal migrants into Britain has been found living in a council flat subsidised by taxpayers.
Twana Jamal, 46, headed a trafficking operation so effective at moving people across the Channel and into the UK that he earned the nicknames the ‘Godfather of traffickers’ and the ‘King of the Calais Jungle’.
Jamal was eventually sentenced to five years in prison in France after smuggling thousands of migrants into Britain and amassing a fortune said to run into the millions. After his release, he later slipped into the UK himself.
The Daily Mail has now learned that the Iraqi Kurd crime figure — who once claimed he could get anyone into Britain — has spent the past two years living in a publicly owned one-bedroom council flat in Leicester.
Jamal, a former weightlifter who drives a BMW, is believed to have been sub-letting the heavily subsidised property. The official tenant would have paid about £380 a month for the flat — roughly half what a similar home would cost on the private rental market.
That suggests the alleged housing fraud may have cost the public purse more than £10,000 in a city that has declared a housing crisis and where applicants can face waits of more than two years for social housing.
A member of the French prosecution team involved in securing Jamal’s conviction told the Daily Mail after being informed of the findings: ‘He was known as the Godfather of Traffickers for a reason – so it is absolutely outrageous that he has done so well for himself in England, but it is not surprising.’
Jamal is understood to split his time between the allegedly unlawful city-centre sublet and a nearby £450,000 bungalow occupied by a relative.
Twana Jamal, 46, a notorious people smuggler, was jailed in France for five years after he smuggled thousands of migrants into the UK, earning millions from doing so
Jamal lived in a one-bedroom council flat (pictured) in Leicester for the last two years
Known as the ‘Godfather of traffickers’ and ‘King of the Calais Jungle’, he drives a 2016 BMW
Jamal, one of the most successful human traffickers ever caught, charged migrants around £4,500 each to bring them to Britain from France – usually by lorry, the smuggling method that was most popular before the small boats crisis superseded it.
Jamal – who employed violent henchmen for protection – was supposed to face deportation back to Iraq after his release from a French prison following his 2016 conviction, but instead he brazenly came to the UK and began working in the village of Blaby just south of the Midlands city.
He is understood to have been living under a false name while running a pair of sweets and vapes shops and driving a black BMW 640 without a licence.
After his secret life in the UK became known last month, his flat was raided by officers from the Home Office’s Criminal and Financial Investigations unit.
The flat’s door, which had apparently been forced open during the raid, is now padlocked with a business card from a Home Office official left in the crack of the doorframe.
An associate of Jamal told how ‘shady-looking characters’ in big expensive cars would visit him regularly at the flat.
He said: ‘There was an Asian woman who would turn up once a month in a big white Mercedes – she would go and see him empty-handed and come out again carrying a bag.
‘I have also seen a group of Middle Eastern men turn up in a black Rolls-Royce Cullinan and a big grey Audi to visit him.’
A neighbour said: ‘We believe the place was being illegally sub-let and used for his dodgy business deals.’
Jamal is also said to have regularly stayed at a suburban bungalow which is hidden behind metal gates.
It appears that Jamal has gone to ground. When the Daily Mail visited the property, the BMW that Jamal had been seen driving around Leicester was parked outside, but there was no sign of him.
A male relative refused to divulge where he was hiding out and said menacingly: ‘You must leave now… Don’t come back.’
Jamal’s presence in England was first revealed last month in a BBC investigation which found that more than 20 known people smugglers are living in the UK – some with overseas convictions, and others claiming asylum using false names.
Jamal was recorded boasting: ‘We know everyone in this city [Leicester], this city is ours.’
He added he was ‘making good money’ in ‘moving cigarettes’ from a warehouse – paying £300 per job. It is thought the cigarettes in question are black market imports on which duty has not been paid.
‘No one touches us here,’ he was recorded bragging. ‘Even the police won’t stop you.’
Jamal was running the M&M Express, a mini-mart, next door to the local Conservative MP’s office
Just 200m away, he had a shop called Candy Corner. Both were shut down by the district council under anti-social behaviour laws
Jamal was also running two shops on the same street, both called Candy Corner, in the village of Blaby, near Leicester.
They were recently closed by Blaby District Council under anti-social behaviour laws.
The first Candy Corner shop was set up in in October 202, while the other, located only 200m away, followed in January this year.
The businesses were registered under the names Blaby SP1 Ltd and Blaby SP Ltd. The director for the companies is 35-year-old Zana Jamal Khdir, who is believed to be Twana Jamal’s younger brother.
However, the frontage for the older of the two shops – located next to the constituency office of local Tory MP Alberto Costa – has since been replaced and now appears to be an off-licence called M&M Express.
Both stores were re-registered with Companies House last weekend.
The businesses are now called MM Blaby Ltd and MM1 Blaby Ltd owned by a Kurdish Iraqi businessman in Liverpool named Mazn Majid Hamid.
When confronted by BBC reporters, Jamal initially denied on camera that he had ever been involved in people smuggling and claimed he had been in the UK since 2009, applying for asylum but was ‘still waiting’.
When shown a picture of himself in a French courtroom in 2016, proving that he was lying about his criminal past, he replied: ‘I don’t care’.
Jamal’s presence in the UK raises questions about how people convicted of serious crimes are able to apply for asylum.
The law states that anyone who has spent a year or more in jail overseas should face a mandatory refusal.
Downing Street said it is urgently looking into reports that Jamal is living in the UK.
A No10 spokesperson said: ‘I’m limited in what I can say on an individual case.
‘But we share the public’s shock at these reports, and we are working urgently to establish the facts. We will not tolerate abuse of our immigration system, and that is why we are deporting people with no right to be here at the highest rate in nearly a decade.’
During the trial in France, prosecutors said Jamal had been operating out of the Grande-synthe camp near Dunkirk since 2012.
He was reported to be the ‘go-to’ guy for getting to the UK from camps along the French coast, ferrying lorry-loads of migrants at a rate of 80 a month.
Jamal initially evaded detection by using trucks with cargoes of onions and cheese to transport migrants from French ports to Britain.
A Home Office business card has been left in the doorframe of the flat where Jamal lived
The cargo foiled carbon dioxide detectors used to identify the breath of people hiding inside because it emits the same gas.
The court heard that Jamal’s nickname in the camps had been ‘Pasha’ – a Turkish word meaning someone of high rank. He claimed that his case had been one of mistaken identity.
A spokesperson for the Home Office said: ‘All asylum claimants are subject to mandatory security checks to confirm their identity for the purpose of immigration, security and criminality checks.’
French police who originally helped convict Jamal told the Daily Mail today that he showed ‘utter contempt for justice’.
Jamal was the kingpin of a so-called ‘mafia’ gang made up of fellow Iraqi Kurds known as the Ranya Boys – named after a town in Iraq many members hail from.
They were ‘extremely violent gangsters’, known both for attacking police and for carrying out punishment beatings of rival people smugglers.
Even after Jamal was sent to a high-security prison in northern France, he acted as if nothing had changed, a French law and order official who helped convict him told us.
‘Like all the Kurdish people smugglers, he had loyal contacts on the outside, and was able to keep up the running of his racket,’ said the source.
‘This enabled him to show utter contempt for justice, with the support of extremely violent gangsters.
‘Intercepted phone calls proved he kept in regular contact with other criminals, and there is absolutely no doubt that they helped him hide his money.
‘He is also a serial liar – even when faced with masses of evidence in court, he claimed it was a case of mistaken identity.
‘British law is meant to prevent anyone with a criminal conviction of more than a year claiming asylum, but Jamal still found it easy to move to the UK.’
The source suggested that Jamal would have had vast reserves of cash, which would have enabled him to establish small businesses in the UK, including the grocery stores in Leicestershire.
‘He sent so many other migrants to England, he clearly had no problem travelling there himself,’ said a police officer based in northern France.
‘He undoubtedly just made up another name. This is something he has been doing for years – so much so that he has to write down what his latest name is, because he forgets them easily.
‘He is extremely good at playing the system.’
Jamal’s gang was notorious for carrying out violent attacks on anyone who stood in their way.
When he was first arrested at a migrant camp in Grande-Synthe, on the outskirts of Dunkirk, police who on the raid were attacked.
‘The attack was very violent, and the great fear was that firearms would be used – they are very common in the Grande-Synthe camps,’ said the source.
This £450,000 home down the road in Leicester is believed to be the home of Jamal’s brother
Jamal (pictured) completed his prison sentence, French officials said, but added they had no information about his movements afterwards
‘Some of Jamal’s closest associates were known for shooting people if they crossed them. There was a lot of fear.’
Associates included Idriss Ghazi Kareem, a 45-year-old Iraqi Kurd who, in 2025, was sentenced to 15 years by French judges for the manslaughter of seven Afghans who drowned on the way to the UK.
France’s Interior Ministry confirmed Jamal had completed his prison sentence, but they had no information about his movements afterwards.
A Leicester City Council spokesperson said: ‘Housing officers visited this property today and met with the tenant who has been registered at this address for more than 15 years.
‘We have no records of a Twana Jamal or Twana Pasha living there.’
