{"id":523335,"date":"2026-04-10T12:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T12:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/523335\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T12:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T12:59:13","slug":"men-behind-tripadvisor-for-people-smugglers-at-car-wash-jailed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/523335\/","title":{"rendered":"Men behind ‘Tripadvisor for people smugglers’ at car wash jailed"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2024, Iranian businessman Asghar Gheshlaghian was jailed for eight years<\/a> after an NCA investigation into the way he used a network of Hawala offices to fund and facilitate the smuggling of migrants into the UK on small boats.<\/p>\n

Like Shamo and Khdir, Gheshlaghian used an otherwise legitimate business \u2013 in his case, a rug company \u2013 as cover for the much more lucrative trade of money laundering for people smugglers, from which he and his associates made millions.<\/p>\n

BBC Wales Investigates travelled to northern Iraq, from where many of the people Shamo and Khdir arranged to smuggle through Europe started their journeys.<\/p>\n

In the vibrant city of Erbil, in the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, we were told several smuggling gangs operated in the region’s hugely profitable smuggling business. <\/p>\n

Through a local contact, it was easy to find adverts on several social media platforms offering transport to western Europe for a fee.<\/p>\n

Using an undercover journalist, posing as an Iraqi man looking to reach the UK, we spoke to one smuggler who said he could arrange for us to be taken from France to the UK in the back of a lorry for $5,000 (\u00a33,900).<\/p>\n

Another man, who called himself Bawar, claimed to be based in Cardiff and offered a more expensive, but less dangerous, trip with a fake passport.<\/p>\n

“The amount is $8,000 (\u00a36,200) and you can easily deposit the amount in any transfer office you want,” he told us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2024, Iranian businessman Asghar Gheshlaghian was jailed for eight years after an NCA investigation into the way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-523335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}