THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Europol said on Thursday it had dismantled one of the largest networks of migrant “smugglers” operating in the Channel, saying it had arrested 19 people in Germany, including the main leader of the network, as part of a large-scale operation carried out with the German, French and Belgian police.
The European agency fighting organized crime, based in The Hague, said that the “investigation focused on an Iraqi-Kurdish network suspected of transporting illegal migrants from the Middle East and East Africa to the Britain from France, using poor quality inflatable boats.
According to the investigation, launched at the end of 2022, the suspects planned the purchases, storage and transport of inflatable boats, most of them produced in China, in order to later use them to transport migrants from beaches located near Calais, in the north of France, towards the British coast.
Europol said the network carried an average of around 50 migrants in boats designed for up to ten passengers, charging migrants between 1,000 and 3,000 euros each.
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Searches were carried out at 28 sites in Germany, where 24 inflatable boats, a large quantity of nautical equipment, 60 electronic devices, weapons and several thousand euros in cash were seized.
(Report by Piotr Lipinski; French version by Jean Terzian, edited by Sophie Louet)
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