It's not just Hollywood that can tell tall tales about bullet-riddled assassination attempts, as a 45-year-old woman from Wisconsin now faces a lengthy stint behind bars after she was convicted of undertaking a botched murder plot.
The case of Aimee Betro is finally nearing its end, some six years after she tried to shoot her lover's rival.
Betro tried to shoot Sikander Ali outside his Birmingham home in September 2019, but after the gun jammed, she fled the scene.
It's said that Betro was involved in the plot with 31-year-old Mohammed Nabil Nazir and 56-year-old Mohammed Aslam, with the pair being involved in a feud with Ali's father.
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She'd previously travelled to the UK two times and had met Nazir on a dating app.
On September 7, 2019, CCTV footage shows Betro waiting outside Ali's house for 45 minutes while wearing a niqab to hide her identity. Betro is seen approaching Ali with the weapon, but when it jammed, he's seen jumping into his car to escape.
Betro then sent texts to Ali's father, Aslat Mahumad, writing: "Stop playing hide n seek. You're lucky it jammed. Who is it? Your family or you? Pick one."
In the early hours of the morning, Betro reportedly took a taxi to a house that Ali shared with his father and fired three shots at the bedroom windows. The property was thankfully empty, with Betro then flying back to the USA and vanishing for the next five years.
When Nazir and Islam were found guilty of conspiracy to murder in court in June 2024, The Times reported on Betro's mother pleading for her to turn herself in. The outlet discovered social media posts from her 2019 trip to the UK, which included her sipping cocktails, attending a trance music festival, and boasting about visiting her 'partner in crime'.
Betro's mother appealed: " She has nowhere else to go, and now that it’s an international manhunt, 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. I’m afraid somebody’s after her and is maybe going to kill her. Now that it’s all come out … she’s got to stop running. She’s got to pay the price now.”
During five years on the run, she fled to Armenia and was eventually arrested there in July 2024.
Now Judge Simon Drew KC has sentenced her to 30 years in prison. Drew told Betro: "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."
Defending herself, Betro said that it was a mere coincidence that the woman captured on CCTV looked like her, while audio recordings of a person ordering a taxi to the crime scene sounded like her.
Although the gun was never recovered, it's thought that one being test-fired (and jamming) on Nazir's phone is the same one.
As well as the 30-year sentence for conspiracy to murder, Betro was handed a concurrent six-year sentence for possessing a firearm and another two-year term for importing ammunition.