Migrant drug dealer tried to smuggle his pregnant wife into UK on stolen passport
A DRUG-dealing African migrant has been condemned for causing a burden to taxpayers after he smuggled his heavily pregnant wife into the UK.
Ali Camara flew to Zaragoza in Spain to collect Gambian-born mother-to-be Oulimatoo Touray and gave her a stolen passport to try to sneak through customs at Stansted Airport.
But the couple, who met online, were stopped by officials and Camara was arrested.
Touray, 23, who was seven months pregnant, had been granted permission to stay in Spain. After giving birth to a daughter in this country, she has now been given temporary leave to remain in the UK.
Within days of appearing in court for the immigration offence in May, Camara was arrested for selling drugs. Newcastle Crown Court heard the 25-year-old was spotted acting suspiciously in the city’s Granger Market and was searched by police, who recovered 18 bags of cannabis, worth over £600, along with £180 cash. A further £1,970 worth of cannabis was found at his home.
The court was told Guineaborn Camara, who was granted British citizenship last year, had been working as a welder earning £14,000 a year. He pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration and supplying cannabis, which he claimed to have been doing for around three months while claiming benefits after quitting his job.
Jailing Camara for nine months, Recorder John Aitken said: “I appreciate you may have committed this for reasons of your own emotional involvement but the long-term effect of that is that you have breached laws which are in place to provide safeguards for the citizens of this country.
“You have taken an unlawful decision to circumvent rules regarding immigration to bring your wife, and now daughter, into this country.”
The judge added: “It has put upon the citizens of the UK the burden of looking after your wife and child – medical care, money and housing if they need it. Your wife was living in Spain and you simply transported her over to the UK.”
Camara told the court his wife had been in a “one-bedroom flat” in Spain but he did not have enough money to pay lawyers to apply for her to live in the UK legally.
Touray said yesterday she was waiting to find out if she and her child can stay in the UK or whether they face deportation.
She said she was studying banking in Gambia when she met Camara on social media.
She said: “My husband came to visit me. He came to Gambia twice. The second time we got married in September. After we got married I got pregnant. He was in Gambia for 11 days. We have been married for one year.
“We were having a longdistance relationship. It was hard for me, he didn’t come and visit me a lot.”
She said her husband’s friends were supporting her because she could not claim benefits.