Twenty members of a network smuggling West African migrants transiting through Niger to Europe were arrested as part of a joint investigation by the Nigerien, French and Spanish police, learned on Thursday January 26. AFP from Nigerian police source.
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"
A total of twenty people were arrested in Niamey and Maradi (Nigerian town in the south near Nigeria) and a multitude of objects and false documents seized
," the Nigerien police said in a statement.
The " ten-day
" investigation
revealed that migrant smugglers operate between Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Niger and Europe, according to the statement.
Use of fraudulent identity documents
The dismantled network "
is structured
" by "
category of activity
": certain members of the group "
organize and facilitate
" the smuggling of migrants "
to Europe by air with the use of identity documents and/or of fraudulent travel
”.
Others "
make false administrative and private documents
", according to the police.
Travel and residence permits and documents, “
latest generation
” computer equipment, civil status documents and negative test certificates for Covid-19, were seized in particular.
Four vehicles, including one bearing a false " National Deputy
" license plate,
were also confiscated.
In October 2021, an investigation by French, Spanish and Nigerien police officers led to the arrest of members of a migrant smuggling network in Zinder - neighboring region of Maradi - while they were transporting around fifteen migrants.
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The main landlord had also been arrested when he was hosting about fifteen other migrants at his home in Maradi.
This traffic originated in the city of Kano in Nigeria, where the illegal immigrants who were to reach Europe originated.
The traffickers were to take them to Greece or Italy via Libya, the French Interior Ministry said.
The desert north of Niger, close to Libya, is a corridor renowned for the trafficking of migrants, drugs and arms, and is also home to jihadist groups.
Hundreds of migrants, lost or abandoned in the middle of the desert by smugglers, are regularly rescued by patrol teams from Niger and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
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