Several members of a network of smuggling migrants, who were transiting from Niger to Europe, were arrested as part of an investigation carried out jointly by the Nigerien, Spanish and French police, AFP learned on Friday (October 29th). police source.
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In all, three traffickers were arrested this week in Zinder, in southern Niger, while carrying around 15 migrants. The main landlord was also arrested while accommodating about fifteen migrants at his home in Maradi (Niger), said Olivier Lefebvre, at the Directorate of International Security Cooperation (DCIS) at the Ministry of the Interior.
The investigation, led since August by three French police, three Spanish and a dozen Nigeriens, also led to the arrest of two smugglers in Agadez, in central Niger.
The traffic originated in the city of Kano, in neighboring Nigeria, where the people who were to reach Europe came from.
The traffickers were to take them to Greece or Italy - where they never reached - via Libya, specifies Olivier Lefebvre.
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The DCIS, which fights against the smuggling of migrants, terrorism and human trafficking, has managed around thirty projects in several “
third
” countries since 2019: 150 networks have been dismantled and 543 “
traffickers
” imprisoned in Niger or elsewhere.
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