Birmingham Man Jailed for £100,000 Hoax 999 Calls

Zaynul Shaffi was jailed for three years at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday (7 April) for making sinister hoax 999 calls that wasted £100,000 of public funds. The West Midlands Police investigation revealed claims of shootings, drownings, and a baby left on train tracks.

Shaffi, 44, and Shahid Khan, 31, would claim that they had been shot, that they had drowned their pregnant wife and family, and on one occasion, that they had left a baby on train tracks. They would provide false details, before watching the emergency services arrive at the scenes.

In August 2024, one of the men called 999 to say that he had left a baby called Josh on train tracks after discovering his wife was cheating on him. During the police response, Shaffi sent Khan a message saying: “Got the chopper (helicopter) out”, with Khan then asking him to video it.

Nearly 20 police vehicles and more than 30 officers were sent to the scene, with more staff and officers supervising the search remotely. West Midlands Police also found a message from Shaffi where he responded to a news article about a bomb hoax. Shaffi said: “They’re not like us man, we do our thing undetected.”

Police Statement

Det Sgt Ross Somerfield, from Birmingham CID, said: “The calls were often very serious and sinister, resulting in immediate responses from specialist officers including firearms and drone units.

“That would then obviously have the knock-on effect of potentially delaying our response to genuine emergencies.

“They would also claim to have seen suspects in murder investigations.

“They seemed to have revelled in the attention that their calls were getting and took pride in their attempts to hide their tracks through the use of different SIM cards.

“But we were able to link the hoax calls and used sophisticated digital policing techniques to identify and arrest the men.”

Shaffi, of Barrows Road, Birmingham, admitted intentionally/recklessly causing a public nuisance and was jailed for three years at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday (7 April). Khan, of Whichford Grove, Birmingham, was deemed unfit to stand trial, but was found by a jury to have committed the acts charged. He will be sentenced at a later date.

Ch Supt Sally Simpson, head of our Force Contact department, said: “Hoax calls are not victimless crimes. They have real world consequences and can mean the difference between us getting to an emergency in time to stop a crime or stop someone coming to harm, and us not getting there in time.

“We work 24/7 to respond to the public and provide the best service possible. Anyone who deliberately tries to stop us from doing that should know that we will take action, and as this case shows, they face the possibility of jail time.”

OFFICIAL SOURCE VERIFICATION: This article is based on an official press release issued by a Police Force. Document: LISTEN: Sinister hoax 999 calls which wasted £100,000 as man jailed for three years Source Link: https://www.westmidlands.police.uk/news/west-midlands/news/news/2026/april/listen-sinister-hoax-999-calls-which-wasted-100000-as-caller-jailed-for-three-years/

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