A woman from Wisconsin traveled halfway around the world, wore a disguise, and tried to kill a man for someone she met on a dating app.
On Tuesday, August 12, 44-year-old Aimee Betro was found guilty in Birmingham Crown Court, U.K., of conspiracy to murder and two gun-related charges, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Police described Betro, from West Allis, Wisconsin, as an “unexceptional” woman with little criminal history. But in 2019, she flew to the U.K., put on a niqab to hide her identity, and went to the home of Sikander Ali in Birmingham. She waited for about 45 minutes in the cul-de-sac before Ali arrived.
Security footage showed Betro walking toward Ali with a gun in her hand. She fired at close range, but the gun jammed, allowing Ali to escape in his car.
The next day, Betro returned in a taxi and shot three bullets into Ali’s house, causing major damage. As she left, she sent taunting text messages from a burner phone to Ali’s father, saying, “stop playing hide ’n’ seek you’re lucky it jammed.” She then fled the U.K.
Court records show Betro was acting at the request of Mohammed Nazir, a man from Derbyshire she met online and visited in the U.K. months earlier. A year before the attack, Nazir and his father, Mohammed Aslam, had been hurt in a fight at a clothing shop owned by Ali’s father. Prosecutors said Nazir wanted revenge and convinced Betro to kill Ali as part of a family feud.
Last year, Nazir was sentenced to 32 years in prison and Aslam to 10 years for conspiracy to murder.
Betro spent five years hiding in Armenia before a reporter from the Daily Mail found her and alerted police. She was extradited to the U.K. and will be sentenced on August 21.
