Man jailed over making 100 fake calls to cops

By Filipa Gaspar

Two sinister time-wasters have been convicted after making more than 100 hoax 999 (911 - US) calls - including abandoning a baby on a railway track.

Shahid Khan, 31, and Zaynul Shaffi, 44, used different handsets and SIMs and changed their accents to try to cover their tracks as they made 122 bogus calls on 78 different days in 2024 and 2025.

Audio footage released by police captured them claiming they had been shot, they had drowned their pregnant wife and family, and on one occasion, they had left a baby on train tracks.

The sick pair would then provide false details before watching the emergency services arrive at the scenes.

It cost an estimated $125,000-worth of public money in wasted emergency resources across the West Midlands.

One of the men called 999 to say he had left a baby called Josh on train tracks after discovering his wife was cheating on him In August 2024.

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.”

Shaffi, of Sparkbrook, Birmingham, admitted intentionally/recklessly causing a public nuisance and was jailed for three years at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday (07/4).

Khan, of Bordsley Green, 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.

Det Sgt Ross Somerfield, from Birmingham CID, said after the case: “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 reveled 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.”

Ch Supt Sally Simpson, head of West Midland Police's 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.”