Self-styled mafia grandmother jailed in UK over human trafficking crimes

Pranvera Smith and her partner used charity as a front to extort cash from vulnerable asylum seekers

Pranvera Smith, left, styled herself as an Albanian mafia boss and worked with partner Flamur Daka in a human smuggling plot. West Midlands police

The founder of a charity purporting to help asylum seekers in Britain has been jailed after secretly extorting money from vulnerable migrants who ended up working in cannabis farms.

Pranvera Smith, 47, described herself as ‘La Nonna’ - an Albanian mafia ‘grandmother’ - to intimidate vulnerable asylum seekers into handing over money after being trafficked into the UK.

She set up the Freedom to Stay group in 2014 and secured £10,000 of charitable cash but was secretly using the organisation as a front to launder proceeds from a human trafficking and extortion racket.

Smith and her partner Flamur Daka, 44, were building an operation to traffic 30 Albanians a month in the back of trucks via the port of Ghent, Belgium, to the UK, police said.

Once they arrived in Birmingham, she bullied some 130 immigrants into paying around £1,000 each in just the first six months of 2020, supposedly in exchange for help to navigate the UK welfare system. If they could not pay, she would withhold their documents.

Many of the immigrants ended up working for less than the statutory minimum wage in car washes and some were rescued from cannabis farms, West Midlands police said.

Smith and Daka used the money to set up a Mediterranean restaurant in Birmingham and on houses in Turkey and Albania.

The pair admitted drugs and immigration offences at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday. Smith was jailed for five years and four months while Daka was sentenced to four years.

Detective Chief Inspector Will Henley said: “These were cynical, calculating crimes. Smith and Daka positioned themselves as big-hearted, charitable people who wanted to help very vulnerable people.

“In reality they were traffickers and abusers.

“Smith liked to describe herself as ‘La Nonna’ to ensure people knew she wasn’t a person to be messed with.”