Wisconsin, woman who traveled to UK for a contract hit on her lover’s rival was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday

Aimee Betro, 45, wore a hijab in an attempt to disguise her appearance before shooting Sikander Ali, 33, outside his house as he drove in on September 7, 2019

The gun jammed, Ali escaped reversing at speed, she then fired three times into the house

Betro allegedly was trying to kill Sikander Ali, 33, the rival of a British man she met online, part of desperate bid to gain his affection

She was hired by Mohammed Nabil Nazir, 31, and his father Mohammed Aslam, 56, to settle a family vendetta, the court heard

Tracked down to her hideout in Armenia in June 2024, Betro was extradited to UK to stand trial

Aimee Betro’s alternate life as a contract killer was exposed in 2019, after her weapon jammed during a botched contract hit in UK. 45-year-old from Milwaukee was sentenced to 30 years in prison, following her conviction on conspiracy to murder

An American woman who traveled from Wisconsin to UK, to carry out a hit on her lover’s rival has been jailed for 30 years by a UK court following her conviction on conspiracy to murder. Judge Simon Drew told Aimee Betro, a Stevens Point, Wisconsin resident, she would serve two thirds of her sentence in UK before being released on license.
Aimee Betro, 45, wore a hijab in an attempt to disguise her appearance before shooting Sikander Ali, 33, at close range outside his house on September 7, 2019.
He only survived as the gun jammed and he managed to escape in his car, but undeterred Betro then returned hours later to fire three shots through the window of his family home.
Miraculously, no one was injured and Betro was able to return to America.
Her last stop during her five years on the run was Armenia, where she was eventually tracked down and arrested last year.

Betro wore a hijab in an attempt to disguise her appearance before trying to gun down her contracted mark Sikander Ali, at close range outside outside a house in Acocks Green, Birmingham, UK, on September 7, 2019

Professional assassin Aimee Betro, 45, British authorities said, flew over from her native Milwaukee to kill boutique clothing store owner Sikander Ali on the orders of rival Mohammed Aslam, 56, and his son Mohammed Nazir, 30

She carried out the failed hit for thug Mohammed Nabil Nazir, 31, who she met on a dating site in 2018.
Nazir and his father Mohammed Aslam, 57, have both already been jailed for their part in the bizarre plot, which followed a row between two families over wedding clothes and escalated into the assassination attempt in a Birmingham cul-de-sac in September 2019.
At Betro’s sentencing on August 21, Judge Simon Drew told the defendant she was ‘recruited to conduct what was intended to be an execution’ and appeared to have acted ‘out of infatuation or love.
‘Indeed, when you gave evidence you said that despite only meeting Nazir face to face on one brief occasion, by the time you arrived in  the UK in August 2019 you were in love with him.

Aimee Betro, [photo], now 45, was found guilty earlier this month of conspiracy to murder, possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and a charge related to the alleged importation of ammunition into the UK

‘You went beyond simply reaching an agreement to kill and, in reality, you did intend to kill Mr Ali. It is only a matter of chance that Mr Ali wasn’t killed,’ Judge Drew told the defendant.
‘You were engaged in a complex, well-planned conspiracy to murder and were prepared to pull the trigger, and did so on two separate occasions,’ the judge said.
Betro was found guilty earlier this month of conspiracy to murder, possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and a charge related to the alleged importation of ammunition into the UK.
She was found guilty by a majority 11 on the conspiracy to murder and firearm charges, and by a unanimous verdict on the ammunition charge following a three week trial.
Seven of the jurors who convicted her last week returned to Birmingham Crown Court to see Betro sentenced. The convicted failed assassin showed no emotion as her sentence was handed down.

CCTV CCTV showed her waiting for 45 minutes outside Sikandar Ali’s house in Yardley, Birmingham, UK, before the attempted assissination on September 7, 2019. The weapon reportedly, jammed

Undeterred, Betro returned a few hours after the gun jammed and fired three shots at the house in Measham Grove, Birmingham

The defense team told the court that their client was previously of good character. Betro’s attorney Paul Lewis, told the judge that she was ‘recruited by Mr Nazir into this enterprise’, and Nazir ‘probably provided the gun’, while arguing that Nazir was the ‘instigator and the prime mover in what occurred’, and that there was no evidence that Betro benefited financially from the plot. 
Lewis highlighting what he termed a ‘degree of amateurism in the planning’ of the attack, noted how Betro had bought two ‘burner phones’, but used her own phone to order a taxi to take her back to Measham Grove ‘on the occasion when shots were actually fired’.

‘Hitman’ Aimee Betro seen on surveillance camera footage at a McDonald’s shortly after the botched assassination attempt

Betro has never given her account to police because she was extradited under a ‘red notice’, meaning she was immediately charged and remanded in custody instead of the procedure of arrest and interview, prior to being charged.
At trial Betro denied being the shooter in the hijab, claiming that another ‘American woman who sounded It was just a ‘terrible coincidence’ she was caught on CCTV around the corner six minutes later, Betro testified.
After the verdict, police described Betro as someone with a ‘problematic relationship with the truth’.
She met Nazir, who lived in Derby and who was 13 years her junior, on a dating app in September 2018 when he was using the name ‘Dr Ice’.
She soon started planning a planning a two-week trip to the UK to celebrate her graduation from college and New Year’s Eve, arriving in London on Christmas Day 2018. 

Betro was contracted for the botched hit by Mohammed Nabil Nazir, [photo], who she admitted to being in love with despite the pair meeting just twice before hired her for the hit. Convicted with his dad on conspiracy to murder, he was sentenced to 32 years in November

Jurors heard Betro stayed in an AirBnB at King’s Cross where she spent the night with Nazir.
She returned to the UK again in August 2019 – this time to do Nazir’s ‘bidding’ and try to kill his rival.
The court heard that after arriving in the UK Betro traveled around before booking into the Rotunda hotel in Birmingham, where on September 6 she phoned clothes shop owner Aslat Mahumad, claiming she wanted to buy the car he was selling online.
When her plan to lure Mr Mahumad out failed, she bought Mercedes E240 from a garage in Birmingham’s Alum Rock district. 
In a series of events was caught on CCTV, the Mercedes was later seen at the entrance to Measham Grove, in the nearby suburb of Yardley. At 9.10pm Sikander Ali pulled onto Measham Grove in his black SUV.
In video footage played to the court, Betro is seen approaching the SUV and firing, but the weapon jams. As the shooter approaches the SUV gun drawn, the vehicle backs up at high speed, clipping the door of Mercedes in the getaway, a collision so severe the sedan’s badly bent door wouldn’t close and Betro had drove away with the door half open.

This black glove with Betro’s DNA was found inside the Mercedes abandoned by the assassin

The female shooter later dumped the Mercedes and changed her clothes. However, investigators found a black glove in the abandoned car. Later, tests matched DNA evidence from the glove to Betro’s profile.
After the gun jammed, Betro next sent threatening text messages to her intended target. Screenshots of the texts were shown to the jury read, ‘Where are you hiding? followed by ‘Stop playing hide and seek you are lucky it jammed’.
Betro then called another taxi to take her back to Measham Grove. 
Jurors were shown CCTV of a figure matching Betro’s description firing three shots into the family home.

Mohammed Aslam [photo], acted on a grudge against Sikander Ali’s family after a violent 2018 dispute at his boutique clothing store in Birmingham. Convicted along with his son for conspiracy to commit murder in June, 2024, he was sentenced to 10 years in November

Betro flew back to the US the following day from Manchester Airport.  Nazir who flew out to join her three days later, was arrested on his return to the UK.
Father and son were both convicted in June 2024. Nazir was sentenced to 32 years for conspiracy to murder while Mohammed Aslam, 56, was handed a ten year 10 year sentence.
The fugitive assassin was tracked down last year to her hideout in Armenia by British media after nearly five years on the run.
Shortly thereafter, her nearly seven months stay in that country ended when she was extradited to the UK, to the jurisdiction of West Midlands Police in June 2024.
At sentencing judge Lewis told Betro that while he accepted Nazir had recruited her, ‘You were the gunwoman – you were the person who was prepared to fire the gun, as a result you showed that you were willing to carry out the killing yourself’.