It’s a long way from Milwaukee to the Midlands — and an even longer journey from childcare assistant to… assassin.
So it’s no surprise that family and friends of Aimee Betro are finding it hard to come to terms with the news that she is on the run after allegedly carrying out a botched hit on a Birmingham businessman.
Hired by a British father and son to settle a feud, she disguised herself in a hijab before aiming a handgun at the head of Sikander Ali. But the weapon jammed, forcing her to flee. Hours later she returned and fired three shots through the windows of Mr Ali’s family home.
Miraculously, no one was injured and days later Betro, 44, was back in the U.S. having first warned her target: ‘Watch your back. I will shed blood soon.’
Aimee Betro has been accused of attempting to assassinate a Birmingham businessman
Details of her alleged role in the botched killing only emerged this week as Mohammed Aslam, 56, and his son Mohammed Nazir, 30, were convicted of plotting the failed killing. Betro was named as the assassin during the trial at Birmingham Crown Court. She has not been charged with any crime, having disappeared soon after the shooting, and is now the subject of an international hunt.
Following a Mail investigation, her extraordinary story can today be told in full for the first time. It can also be revealed that she is living in Armenia. Betro told her family she had travelled there to work as a DJ on a radio station.
Yesterday, having been sent a copy of an article published by the Mail, Betro broke her silence. ‘Dude I saw, like wtf I don’t even know where to start with all the misinformation that’s said about me,’ she wrote in an exchange with a friend via Facebook. ‘It’s a f***ing sh** show.’
Mohammed Aslam, 56, has been convicted of plotting the failed killing
Aslam’s son Mohammed Nazir, aged 30, from Elms Avenue in Derby, was also convicted
When the friend asked if he could help, she replied: ‘Idk dude. I don’t think there’s anything you can help with but I really appreciate you reaching out.’
Despite the police hunt, Betro is said to have been in regular contact with friends and has been posting photos from her apartment in Armenia on social media.
Which begs the question why haven’t British authorities been able to locate her. ‘Just track her phone and have her,’ the friend said, adding that in exchanges with other pals Betro admitted to basic facts of the case.
‘Aimee doesn’t say she had no part of this,’ he said. ‘She acknowledges she was involved and all that. She just says some of the details aren’t right.’
But those who know her say they cannot understand how she came to be involved in the plot. In the run-up to the attempted killing in 2019, Betro, who trained in childcare, had spent five years selling tickets for her local baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers. ‘She was a good person,’ said one friend. ‘She had herself together, she went to school, she went to college. She didn’t have a bad bone in her body.’
Another added: ‘If you put everyone in this town in a group and said which one is going to try to kill somebody, she’d be the last person I’d pick. I never even heard her yell at anybody.’
But there was a darker side to Betro’s life. Struggling financially, days before travelling to England she allegedly used the bank details of a customer who bought baseball tickets from her to pay £330 into her own account. Two further attempts to defraud a further £1,000 were blocked.
When she vanished five years ago, she also left debts running into thousands as well as almost all her possessions in her rented flat, suggesting a hurried departure. ‘She left her clothes, suitcases, lamps, everything,’ said her mother, Jeanne Johnson.
When told by the Mail what her daughter had been up to, she added: ‘I’ve been waiting for this day — either trouble or dead… what the hell was she thinking?’
As for her father, Steven Betro, to whom she is said to be close, it can be revealed that he is serving a seven-year jail sentence for possessing and trafficking methamphetamine, a powerful, highly addictive illegal drug.
On X, Betro suggested she was also no stranger to drugs: ‘Bartender at this hotel bar: if you can’t score in London then you can’t score anywhere. wtf… i suppose i’ve got that covered though so i must be good??,’ she posted in June 2019, three months before her final visit here.
Her account also reveals that, despite her financial problems, in the 12 months prior to the attempted shooting, she had travelled on her own to the UK on three occasions. How she afforded it and what she was doing here is unclear, although she claimed to have been attending music festivals and raves.
Born in 1979, Betro is understood to be the eldest of three daughters born to Ms Johnson and her now ex-husband Steven. She spent much of her early life in Stevens Point, a small city 150 miles from Milwaukee.
According to her mother, a former trucking firm dispatcher who lives in a trailer park, Betro graduated in the top third of her class in high school. She then spent a year studying graphic design at college before doing a two-year degree in early childhood education and teaching, graduating in 2005. ‘She’s a pretty girl, very intelligent, very outgoing,’ said Ms Johnson, who has only had infrequent contact with her daughter in recent years. ‘I couldn’t get a word in edgeways.’
But while Betro held down a number of childcare and teaching assistant roles, her CV also shows her moving between various low-paid jobs, including as a sales rep with the Brewers baseball team.
Her main passion was music — particularly electronic dance. She became involved with a music tech start-up and a couple of years ago purchased electronic equipment to use for DJ events.
She suddenly also began to travel. ‘Solo birthday adventure next month!!,’ she wrote on X in July 2018. ‘I’m going to #london baby!! First time out of the U.S. except Canada 15 years ago!’
After that she wrote that she was like a ‘regular London local’ having been mistaken as a Brit by a bartender when she ordered a pint of Boddingtons. ‘I absolutely loved the #uk and can’t wait to go back.’ In January 2019 she posted a night time photo of an illuminated Tower Bridge, writing: ‘Happy new year from #London’. In May she was back for a third time, apparently for a music festival.
Which brings us to her final trip to the UK on August 22. What we now also know is that — ahead of another costly transatlantic trip —Betro was allegedly stealing money through her work.
Court documents from Wisconsin detail how she used the bank details of a customer buying baseball tickets to divert cash into her own account. (Incredibly, within two days of returning from her trip she would be interviewed by U.S. police about the matter, denying any wrongdoing. By the time a warrant for her arrest was issued, she had disappeared.) Arriving in Britain, she tirelessly recorded details of her ‘holiday’ on X and Instagram. Social media posts show her flying from Chicago to Manchester via Atlanta.
A picture posted on the plane bears the caption: ‘To Manchester we go can’t wait to see my BFF partner in crime LOL’. She visited Birmingham, Brighton, Derby and Manchester. She also attended a boat party, visited the London Eye and went to a music festival at Crystal Palace.
How she came into the orbit of Mohammed Aslam and his son Mohammed Nazir is unclear.
But they appear to have been in contact ahead of the trip. The court heard guns had been sent by Betro from Illinois, according to a tip-off received by police.
In court, it was alleged that Aslam and Nazir had developed a grudge against Sikander Ali and his father Aslat Mahamud following a violent dispute at Mr Ali’s boutique clothing store in Birmingham on July 21, 2018.
Before the failed assassination Mr Mahamud said he received a call from a woman with an American accent asking about buying a Volkswagen Golf he had for sale.
On September 6, 2019, Nazir and Aslam travelled from their home in Derby to Birmingham. Nazir spent more than two hours in the city centre’s Rotunda hotel with Betro — who ordered a Deliveroo takeaway. The same day Betro posted a selfie on Instagram with devil horns.
Aimee Betro’s father Steven is serving a seven-year jail sentence for possessing and trafficking methamphetamine
Around 7.30pm the next evening she drove to Acocks Green in Birmingham in her rented Mercedes. While she waited there, CCTV captured Nazir and Aslam travelling up and down a nearby road in their car. Before long, Mr Ali pulled up at his father’s home in the suburb. He recalled noticing the Mercedes because it was parked in a ‘stupid’ place and described someone in a hijab getting out and aiming a gun at him.
In a statement read to the court, Mr Ali said: ‘As I turned and looked I saw the driver’s door was already open and the person — I could not tell if it was a man or woman, they were still dressed in the hijab — was moving towards me. I could see this person had a gun in their hand. I felt scared. The person moved their arm towards me and pointed directly at me. I panicked at this point. I immediately got back into the car and slammed the door shut.’
Unknown to him, the gun had jammed. Betro abandoned her Mercedes, calling a taxi just before 9pm. She then texted Mr Mahamud saying ‘where are you hiding?’ and ‘stop playing hide and seek, you are lucky it jammed’.
She demanded Mr Mahamud meet her, writing: ‘Who is it your family or you, pick one’. In the early hours she took a taxi back to the address, firing three shots in the direction of the house. It was empty and no one was hurt. She then went to a McDonald’s.
Mr Mahamud said he received a final message that read: ‘You want to rip me off, you want to be a drugs kingpin go look at your house. I will show you. Watch your back. I will shed blood soon.’
He replied: ‘What are you talking about? I’m a family man. I have never sold drugs in my life.’
Betro fled to the U.S. the next day. The jury heard Nazir flew to America a few days after Betro, whom he put down as his point of contact on travel documentation.
A post by Betro on X suggests he may have stayed with her. Nazir returned to the UK the following month and was later arrested, as was Aslam. The latter was found guilty of conspiracy to murder but cleared of a firearms offence.
Nazir was found guilty of conspiracy to murder and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, perverting the course of justice, and illegally importing firearms over a plot to bring guns into Britain and then blame it on another person to frame them. Detectives pieced together their involvement through their phones, CCTV and financial investigations.
By April 2020 Betro’s posts suggest she was no longer in the U.S.
A female friend of her father told the Mail they understood she had been living in Armenia. ‘Last he said she was loving living in Armenia and she was DJ-ing,’ she said.
Aimee Betro disappeared after the shooting and is now the subject of an international hunt
As for her mother, Ms Johnson said that while she had not seen Betro in a while, several years ago FBI agents had come to her trailer, quizzing her about her daughter.
The officers accused Betro of sending an illegal package and obtained a DNA swab from Ms Johnson. She messaged her daughter to ask about the package, to which Betro replied: ‘That’s none of your business.’
One assumption is police were looking to match Betro’s DNA with the package of guns said to have been sent by her to the UK.
Ms Johnson’s most recent contact was on May 12 when Betro sent a text wishing her a happy Mother’s Day.
She also called on her daughter to hand herself in, saying: ‘I ‘d love her to do that because she is going to run out of places to hide. She has nowhere else to go and now that it’s an international hunt, she’s not going to be able to fly anywhere. If she comes here, I’m not letting her in. I will call the police. She’s got to stop running. She’s got to pay the price now.’
A spokesperson for West Midlands police said: ‘A warrant for the arrest of a woman has been issued and enquiries to locate her continue. Active lines of enquiry are being pursued and appropriate authorities engaged with.’
Additional reporting: Barbara McMahon