A new podcast reveals the moment one of Europe’s most wanted people smugglers is confronted by a BBC journalist and British aid worker – and he boasts that ’95 to 99 per cent’ of illegal crossings to the UK since 2016 can be linked directly to him.
The tense final episode of To Catch a Scorpion sees documentary maker Sue Mitchell and volunteer aid worker Rob Lawrie finally come face-to-face with Barzan Majeed – who’s on global ‘most wanted’ lists and uses the codename ‘Scorpion’ – in a shopping mall coffee shop in the city of Sulaymaniyah, Iraq.
In the eight-part BBC Radio 4 Intrigue podcast, Mitchell and ex Army expert Lawrie try to track down Majeed and question him about how he’s illegally smuggled ‘tens of thousands’ of desperate migrants across Europe, with many arriving on UK soil.
The eighth episode, The Final Sting, sees Mitchell and Lawrie travel to Sulaymaniyah, a city in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where Majeed was born, after tracking him down via secret lorry pick-up points in Calais, car wash rackets in the UK and boat yards in Turkey.
The moment BBC journalist Sue Mitchell and volunteer aid worker Rob Lawrie come face-to-face with the Scorpion (left), after arranging a meeting with the 38-year-old people smuggling criminal in his native Iraq
The Intrigue podcast for Radio 4 sees the pair travel to Calais, car wash outfits in the UK and boat yards in Turkey before they finally have a secret meeting with the Scorpion in his native Iraq. He admits that he was once at the top of Europe’s trafficking chain – but denies he’s still involved
The final episode of To Catch a Scorpion sees Mitchell and Lawrie catch up with the Scorpion, as he invites them to a secret meeting in a shopping mall cafe in the city of Sulaymaniyah. He arrived in the UK as an illegal immigrant himself in 2006 – before inheriting his brother’s people smuggling empire in 2016
Earlier episodes saw the contacts of Majeed reveal the gangster is so ‘addicted’ to making illegal millions that he’s recently introduced ‘economy, business and first class’ tiers to migrants desperate for a new life in the UK – including £18,000 ‘less stress’ ferry tickets across the Channel.
The criminal mastermind, who was smuggled into the UK himself in 2006 and lived in Nottingham, continues to evade capture in spite of an international police surveillance operation that has imprisoned many of his underworld colleagues.
After serving prison sentences for drug and gun offences, the BBC reports that he was deported back to his birth country, where he then inherited his brother’s people-smuggling business.
In 2022, he was handed a ten-year jail sentence for people smuggling in his absence at a court in Bruges and given a 968,000 Euro (£849,000) fine, which remains unpaid.
Mitchell and Lawrie track down his phone number, and the pair are shocked to find he calls them back, and denies that he’s ever hurt anyone directly via people smuggling, saying: ‘God [writes it down] when you’re going to pass away, but this is sometimes your fault. “God doesn’t never say “Go inside the boat”‘.
The last episode in the podcast reaches a dramatic crescendo as they finally get a meeting with their man.
The podcast reveals that Scorpion is now offering a ‘first class’ style service – costing £18,000 – by paying corrupt border control officials in Calais to let migrants through ferry terminals
Travelling to Iraq, the pair meet Majeed, who agrees to have his voice recorded. They describe him as looking like ‘an affluent golfer’, saying he’s ‘smartly dressed, in new jeans, a light-blue shirt and a black gilet’ with neatly manicured nails.
It’s thought the money he’s making is invested into property and business.
When Mitchell presses him on the deaths of migrants at the hands of people smugglers, he says: ‘I never put anybody in a boat and I never kill anybody.’
Quizzed by how many people Scorpion has been linked to smuggling since he began and how much money he’s made, he boasts: ”A million dollars. 99, 98, 95 percent of people since 2016 have my number. I was between all of them like I said.’
During the recorded meeting, he also denies that he’s currently involved in people smuggling, saying that he’s now stopped – but Lawrie later spots the reflection in his phone showing ‘video after video’ of passports numbers coming through to him.
The series examines how Majeed has risen to the top of a criminal empire after being smuggled to the UK himself in 2020; he tells Mitchell and Lawrie, he’s been responsible for a million dollars exchanging hands after masterminding boat, lorry and ferry Channel crossings
An earlier episode sees an anonymous contact who knew Scorpion during the early days of his criminal career estimates shed light on why he’s prepared to put the lives of migrants at huge risk in lorries and on inadequate boats.
With his voice disguised, the man says: ‘He loves the nice cars, the nice house, he was living the high life, he had money always – $200,000 always under his bed.
‘In one night, he made £500,000. He had 56 passengers, minimum price was £9,000 [pp] for the lorry.’
The third episode of the series unearths how corruption within border control has led Scorpion to a new, more expensive way of reaching British shores.
Another contact says he’s now offering ‘a premier service’, explaining: ‘Barzaan said there’s three modes: business, economic [SIC] and first class.’
Mitchell and Lawrie are left astonished after they speak to an anonymous Iranian man about how he successfully made it to the UK via the ‘premium’ cross-Channel ferry route, touting it as the ‘safest’ way to travel.
He tells them that he travelled with his wife and father, after paying £18,000 to Scorpion’s gang.
The man says he was told he would be able to board a ferry in Calais right under the noses of the authorities and ‘no-one would stop them’.
He draws a map for Mitchell and Lawrie who then go to Calais to re-trace his steps and see if his story lines up – and they quickly find the electronic gate his family’s journey to England began with.
The exit gate is only ever to be used by staff at the Port of Calais and Scorpion’s gang members tell the family to dress smartly and ‘stride with confidence’, the podcast recounts.
The family were told the gate would open at 8pm and then they should hide in a toilet block for 20 minutes, which they did.
The Iranian says: ‘We had just 30 seconds, we passed the door and just walked in. When we passed the door I saw the police.’
Lawrie says: ‘You just walked past them?’ The man replies: ‘Yeah, yeah’.
A corrupt official in the Scorpions pay knocked on the door of the toilet block and then proceeded to drive the family on to the ferry, avoiding British passport controls.
Lawrie says: ‘The man was confident enough to invite them out of his car and buy them an English breakfast on the ferry.’
In Calais, they realise that the contact’s story matches the description of the buildings they find.
‘You can see it there. It’s exactly right. What he says. I mean, put yourself in there. He’s going to walk through all this officialdom,’ Mitchell says.
‘And he’s gotta walk with confidence through that gate and walk towards that door as if it’s gonna open at exactly the right time. I mean, that’s something out of a movie isn’t it?’
The Port of Calais authorities hasn’t commented on the Iranian family’s claims.
The second episode of the series sees Mitchell and Lawrie meet another Iranian family, this time who crossed the Channel in the dead of night on a boat.
They meet them first in Calais as 13-year-old Manna is preparing to make the dangerous crossing with her parents, brother and baby sister Maya.
Manna tells the journalist and aid worker that they’ve paid £6,000 for the trip, after being told they have a ‘big chance’ of getting to England.
After staying in touch with the family after they do arrive on British soil – to live in a tent before claiming asylum – they recount their terrifying experience crossing the Channel with gun-carrying smugglers.
Journalist Mitchell and volunteer aid worker Lawrie meet Manna, a 13-year-old Iranian girl who travelled to the UK with her father, mother and baby sister on a terrifying nine-hour journey in a dinghy – her sister was given sleeping medication to stop her crying and alerting authorities
Manna tells them they boarded an inflatable dinghy carrying 13 adults, including 4 children. With no navigation system, they were blown off course in the pitch black and the journey took nine hours.
Manna is heard saying that her mother gave the baby to the smuggler who fed her ‘a sleeping agent’ so her cries wouldn’t alert border force authorities.
She told the podcast, she was scared of giant waves caused by a passing ferry and that she was praying to god for their safety because it was ‘so cold’.
According to the Home Office, 120,000 people have arrived on UK shores in this way since 2020.
Investigators from the National Crime Agency (NCA) have been working with officers in Belgium to track Majeed down and issued a warrant for his arrest in 2022.
The criminal moved to the UK in 2013, living in Nottingham, where he still has connections.
In 2015, he was deported to the Kurdistan region of Northern Iraq after being convicted of drug and gun offences.
The podcast comes amid controversy over the government’s new scheme to send migrants Rwanda.
Following the UK’s Supreme Court decision that the policy was unlawful because Rwanda was not a safe country to remove asylum seekers to in November 2023, the government and Rwanda published a new treaty providing additional safeguards.
The bill was redrafted and passed some two weeks ago.
Since the Safety of Rwanda bill became law, the first phase of operations have got underway, with more activity due to be carried out in the coming weeks.
Around a week ago, the Home Office detained the first set of migrants set to be deported to Rwanda, with flights due to take off at the beginning of July.
Home Secretary James Cleverly said teams were ‘working at pace to swiftly detain those who have no right to be here’, referring to it as a ‘pioneering response to the global challenge of illegal migration’.
He explained: ‘This is a complex piece of work, but we remain absolutely committed to operationalising the policy, to stop the boats and break the business model of people smuggling gangs.’
The Home Office has increased its detention capacity to more than 2,200 detention spaces, trained 200 new caseworkers to quickly process claims and has 500 highly trained escorts ready.
Ministers believe the prospect of being sent to Rwanda will deter illegal migrants from crossing the Channel.
The Government is gambling that the first flights to East Africa will have a stark impact on Channel arrivals, and demonstrate to voters that the problem is finally in hand.
It said that any asylum seeker attempting to enter the UK ‘illegally’ from a safe country, could be sent to Rwanda and have their claims processed there.
Last month, sources said 100 to 150 migrants had already been identified for the first tranche of removals.
Under two recent Acts of Parliament the Government has powers to disregard asylum applications from those who arrive in the UK by ‘irregular’ routes such as by small boat.
Measures have also been taken to severely restrict migrants’ access to legal appeals. However, some limited appeal rights are retained.
It said the country has a strong and successful track record in resettling people, hosting more than 135,000 refugees, and stands ready to accept thousands more who cannot stay in the UK.
Officials said the government’s Safety of Rwanda Act and internationally binding Treaty reaffirm and ensure the safety of Rwanda and this policy.
However, it is expected that the government will face legal action, with pro-migrant charity Care4Calais saying last month that it planned to initiate challenges as quickly as possible.
The full boxset of Intrigue: To Catch a Scorpion is available to listen to on BBC Sounds. It will be broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 4 from Wednesday 15th May, 9:30am.