An American woman who once tried to pass herself off as a tourist visiting London landmarks has instead been sentenced to three decades in a British prison for an assassination plot that nearly succeeded.
Aimee Betro, 45, of Wisconsin, was given a 30-year sentence Thursday at Birmingham Crown Court for conspiracy to murder and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. Prosecutors said Betro was recruited in 2019 by a father and son — Mohammed Aslam and Mohammed Nazir — to kill a man in Birmingham. The target was the son of a longtime rival of the pair.
Betro spent more than two weeks in the U.K. preparing for the attack, buying burner phones and even disguising herself in a niqab to conceal her identity. Outside the victim’s home, she aimed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. But the weapon jammed. Days later, she returned and fired shots at his house before fleeing back to the U.S.
Incredibly, the victim survived. His escape launched an international investigation that stretched across years and continents. For five years Betro managed to evade capture — until investigators tracked her down in Armenia last summer. Extradited back to Britain in January, she faced trial earlier this month and was quickly convicted.
Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Orencas of West Midlands Police called it “luck” that the attempt failed. “While she was passing herself off as a tourist, posting pictures and video of landmarks such as the London Eye while she was here, her real purpose was to commit murder,” he said.
Police said Betro and Nazir had first connected online. Their relationship grew into what prosecutors later described as a “long-distance love affair,” one that drew her into his bitter feud. Alongside the botched shooting, Betro also tried to frame another rival of Nazir’s by shipping ammunition from the U.S. to the U.K. to make it appear that man had broken the law.
The Crown Prosecution Service released damning details of Betro’s planning. At one point, she sent a message directly to the victim’s father: “Stop playing hide n seek. You’re lucky it jammed. Who is it? Your family or you? Pick one.”
At trial, prosecutors presented CCTV footage, phone records, and digital forensics, evidence stitched together by a coalition of investigators spanning West Midlands Police, Derbyshire Constabulary, the FBI, and international partners. Hannah Sidaway, a prosecutor with the CPS, said Betro was “relentless in her bid to escape justice” but the case against her became overwhelming.
“It’s by luck that her attempt to kill her target failed,” Sidaway said. “Only Betro knows what truly motivated her or what she sought to gain from becoming embroiled in a crime that meant she traveled hundreds of miles from Wisconsin to Birmingham to execute an attack on a man she did not know.”
Aslam and Nazir have also been sentenced for their roles in orchestrating the plot. But it is Betro, the would-be hitwoman who straddled two continents, who now faces the steepest penalty: three decades in prison.
