Would-be hitwoman from Wisconsin convicted in UK over failed murder plot

CNN

5 days ago

Crime
UKFacebookTweetLink
Follow
An American woman who was hired by her British lover as a would-be assassin, but then botched the attack and spent five years on the run, has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder.
Aimee Betro, 44, from Wisconsin, attempted to shoot a man dead outside his home in Birmingham, England, on September 7, 2019, but failed because her gun jammed – leaving her would-be victim to escape unscathed through 'sheer luck,' according to prosecutor Hannah Sidaway, from the Crown Prosecution Service in the West Midlands.
After a case that spanned continents and involved multiple crime agencies, including the FBI and the National Crime Agency, Betro was convicted Tuesday at Birmingham Crown Court.
The court had heard that, despite living thousands of miles away, Betro had become entangled in a family revenge plot arranged by father and son, Mohammed Aslam and Mohammed Nazir, from Derbyshire, England.
The plot stemmed from a fight the pair had with the owner of a clothing store in Birmingham in 2018.
The court heard how the dispute with the store owner, Aslat Mahumad, led the two men to conspire to kill him, or a member of his family, the UK's PA Media news agency reported.
His son, Sikander Ali, was the eventual target and victim, according to PA. Aslam and Nazir were jailed for their role in the murder plot last year, West Midlands Police said in a statement. Nazir was sentenced to 32 years in prison while Aslam landed 10 years, according to the CPS.
'Only Betro knows what truly motivated her or what she sought to gain from becoming embroiled in a crime that meant she travelled hundreds of miles from Wisconsin to Birmingham to execute an attack on a man she did not know. The jury clearly agreed this was a planned hit which failed,' the prosecutor said.
Over the three-week trial, the court heard how Betro met her lover Nazir on a dating app in late 2018 and flew to meet him in person that Christmas, before returning to the US in January 2019, PA reported.
In August 2019, she traveled to the UK again to carry out the planned killing the following month. On the day of the attack, Betro disguised herself in a niqab and waited outside her victim's house in a Mercedes purchased earlier that day, the CPS said.
As the man pulled up to his home in his Black SUV, CCTV captured Betro leaving her vehicle, firearm in hand, and attempting to fire shots. As the weapon jammed, the man was able to escape in his car, reversing at speed and clipping the Mercedes' door on the way out of the cul-de-sac, according to the CPS.
After the bungled attempt, the hitwoman abandoned her vehicle nearby, before returning to the property hours later in a taxi, the CPS detailed. She fired three bullets through the windows of the house, including a bedroom window.
She then returned to her taxi, from which she sent taunting messages from a burner phone to the victim's father, reading 'Where are you hiding,' and ''Stop playing hide 'n' seek you're lucky it jammed.'
The damaged Mercedes was later recovered with a key piece of evidence inside, a black glove containing Betro's DNA, the CPS said.
Betro fled the UK within hours of the shooting. She was joined in the US three days later by her lover and co-conspirator, Nazir. The pair orchestrated another revenge plot, involving sending illegal ammunition to a man in Derby, England, in the hopes he would be arrested, according to West Midlands Police.
The Wisconsin-native then decided to hideout in Armenia, where she was tracked down by Armenian police in July 2024 and extradited, the CPS said.
'This was a complex investigation and extradition process which required bringing together multiple agencies including the National Crime Agency and Armenian Courts. We worked together to make sure we had a watertight prima facie case in order to lawfully arrest Aimee Betro in a foreign country without her becoming aware and potentially fleeing again,' John Sheehan, head of the CPS Extradition unit, said.
Betro will be sentenced on Thursday, August 21.