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An American “hitwoman” who attempted to murder a Birmingham business owner before going on the run in Armenia has been jailed for 30 years at Birmingham crown court.
Earlier this month, Aimee Betro, 45, from Wisconsin was found guilty of conspiracy to murder, possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and an offence relating to the importation of ammunition into the UK, after a two-week trial.
During the murder attempt, Betro had disguised herself by dressing in a niqab, a face covering worn by some Muslim women, to hide her identity as she tried to shoot dead her victim outside his east Birmingham home in September 2019.
She fired the gun at point-blank range as her victim arrived home in his car to the cul-de-sac where he lived in South Yardley, but the weapon jammed or malfunctioned, and he managed to speed away unharmed.
Betro then returned hours later and fired three bullets through the bedroom windows of the family home, but again, no one was hurt.
Betro’s assassination attempt was part of a revenge plot arranged by father and son Mohammed Aslam and Mohammed Nazir from Derbyshire, after a dispute the men had had with the clothing shop owner.
In 2018, disorder at the man’s shop had resulted in damage to the premises, as well as injuries to himself, Aslam and Nazir.
In November 2024 the pair, who had denied any wrongdoing, were convicted after a trial. Nazir was sentenced to 32 years for offences including conspiracy to murder, while his father, Aslam, was sentenced to 10 years.
Betro was recruited by her long-distance lover Nazir, who she had met online, and flew to the UK in August 2019 to carry out the planned killing in Birmingham the next month.
Telephone evidence recovered by West Midlands police revealed Betro had visited Nazir in Derby in September 2019. Video footage on his mobile phone showed a gun being test-fired on wasteland near the A38; the weapon jammed during filming, as happened during the murder attempt three days later.
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Betro texted a message to the father of the man she had tried to kill, saying: “Stop playing hide n seek. You’re lucky it jammed. Who is it? Your family or you? Pick one.”
Hours after her failed murder bid, Betro fled the country, first to the United States, and then to Armenia, from where she was eventually extradited to face trial.
In a separate foiled plot, Betro sent illegal ammunition from the United States to a man in Derbyshire, another rival of Nazir’s, so that he would be arrested.
