When Egyptian-born fisherman Ahmed Ebid arrived in the UK in October 2022 on a small boat from France, it didn't take him long to make the most of his new home.
Alongside his wife and daughter, then aged about 12, he was put up in a taxpayer-funded block of flats with a deco-style in the desirable Isleworth area of southwest London.
Ebid, 42, was given the lodgings while he applied for asylum, despite previously serving a jail sentence in Italy for six years for attempting to smuggle a tonne of cannabis into the country.
But instead of using his new home properly, he used it as his headquarters while he organised an international people smuggling ring.
He masterminded a £12 million operation, in which around 3,800 migrants, including women and children, were transported to Europe from Libya on just seven crossings of dangerously overcrowded fishing vessels.
