A SHADOWY TikToker ran a multi-million migrant smuggling empire from a modest terraced home, all the while charging £8,500 per dangerous crossing.
Amanj Hasan Zada used sinister tactics to run a “sophisticated” business organising Channel crossings for migrants to come into Britain.
He then bragged about raking in the cash, posting videos where he threw it in the air and celebrating being the “best people smuggler”.
Dubbed the “King of the Sea”, he ran his enterprise from a normal-looking terraced house in Preston, Lancashire.
But he posted relentlessly online about his success, even firing a handgun in the air while laughing in joy in one video.
Arrogant Zada, who once threatened to cut off a man’s legs after discovering his family had paid half price for a crossing, throws piles of cash at the singers and fires off a handgun at the end of the song which extols him as being “brave”.
The 35-year-old offered discounts to migrants who agreed to film themselves crossing the Channel and leave him good reviews on Facebook and TikTok.
Therefore videos flooded the internet of migrants squeezed on perilous cramped boats – praising the crook as a hero.
He used these ‘reviews’ to garner more business.
But he was snared by the National Crime Agency after smuggling hundreds of migrants from Iraq, Turkey, and the wider Middle East.
NCA investigator Alistair Mullen led the probe which began in 2023.
Zada, himself an illegal migrant, was monitored by cops in Preston, where he managed his business and forced his associates to come to him.
Speaking on the podcast ‘Underworld: Behind the Scenes of the NCA’, an officer said: “They think they’re being really clever by living in a small terraced house, driving around in a small Hyundai car.”
The podcast reveals how he ran a complex smuggling racket from the living room of his tiny terraced home after entering Britain illegally and being granted asylum in 2019.
From the outside, Zada looked like any hard-up young jobless young man, but behind closed doors he was making £8,500 pounds from every immigrant he smuggled in.
“Not particularly extravagant in any way, shape, or form. On the face of it, they don’t look like they’re these big-time criminals with these lavish lifestyles and everything else.
“But that doesn’t mean that they haven’t got two or three million pound stuck in a bank waiting for them to go and retire to. Doesn’t mean they haven’t got an estate back in Turkey waiting for them to go and retire to.”
Intelligence officer Monica described how she was tasked with finding his the many videos about Zada’s crossings.
She said the clips saw migrants celebrating their crossing, praising Zada and saying things like “he’s the lion of the sea” or “the king of the sea”.
“For example, there was one where migrants were ripping up their passports after a successful crossing
“That was the majority of the content. The social media material that we relied on was really important cause it set the tone.’
“Every single account he had, he had multiple across the time we were investigating him, but all of them had upwards of a thousand followers. I think at the start we had one that had closer to 10,000.
“They were all getting likes, shares, loads of comments just praising Hasan Zada.
“There were numbers quite often advertised for the migrants to contact him or his other facilitators on. That’s how he was getting migrants basically.”
In May last year, the probe made a massive step forward after surveillance revealed a yacht would be carrying migrants from Turkey.
Fearing lives would be at risk on the crossing, officers leapt into action.
The NCA released footage of the moment they raided his modest Preston home.
They seized his phone, and desperately tried to crack into it to stop the dangerous crossing from taking place.
Alastair recalled on the podcast: “It was within 12 hours that was going to set sail. So that was a priority for us, getting hold of that phone and then trying to get into it.”
Zada was found guilty of three counts of facilitating illegal immigration in relation to seven people and was sentenced to 17 years in prison in November 2024.
It’s believed he invested his fortune in property and land in Iraq after migrants paid him through the Muslim hawala system, which operates outside normal banking rules.
Desperate families would pay cash to a hawaladar (money broker) who would keep the cash for Zada, pass on to his family or exchange for services.
This allows people to exchange funds without physical cash crossing borders, settling accounts with each other later through a system of debt and credit based on trust and relationships. The method has long been associated with an easy way for criminals to launder money.
Another three members of the network were snared in Sulaymaniyah in January 2025 – two people smugglers and a Hawala banker.
Zada’s brother was also jailed last month for his role in the criminal empire.
