The prosecution on Tuesday demanded six months to six years in prison against 14 Sri Lankans tried since January 9 in Beauvais for their involvement in the trafficking of irregular migrants. The permanent ban from French territory was also demanded against seven of them by the public prosecutor, Jean-Pascal Arlaux, who denounced “organized gang trafficking“.
Among the 14 defendants, aged 32 to 58, six are in pre-trial detention and seven are under judicial supervision. The last, based in the United Kingdom, multiplies the appeals against his extradition. They are on trial for having helped Sri Lankan and Bengali migrants to cross illegally, in particular from Ukraine, several European countries to France or the United Kingdom, thanks to their contacts in several countries of the east of Europe. Facts committed between November 2019 and April 2021.
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clandestine network of former migrants
In charge of the investigation, the Central Office for the Repression of Irregular Immigration and the Employment of Undocumented Foreigners (OCRIEST) was first interested in a couple based in Meudon (Hauts-de- Seine), who seemed to be at the head of a clandestine network.
The investigations will highlight transfers of funds, false papers and visas from different European countries. They will also reveal that the sector is actually run from Sérifontaine, in the Oise, by the manager of a small grocery store.
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It was he who set the conditions of passage, the routes, the number of migrants to be transported, the organization of the corruption of certain officials from Eastern countries as well as the negotiation of tariffs. Six years in prison were required against him.
Three of his accomplices, who all live in the Paris region, are themselves former migrants, who used their knowledge of the countries bordering France to become smugglers in turn. The other defendants have a more secondary place in this traffic. “There is no pyramid structure: it is several organizations and cells with associates“, underlined Jean-Pascal Arlaux. The deliberation must be returned Thursday.