Tuesday February 13, four Iraqi smugglers in an irregular situation were arrested in the Oise by the Indre-et-Loire gendarmerie group and by the Office for Combating Illicit Trafficking of Migrants in Rennes and Lille, we learned.
Le Figaro
from police source.
These migrants are suspected of having smuggled nearly 125 migrants
“in heavy goods vehicles, on motorway rest areas”
, mainly in the west of France, this same source tells us.
According to our information, the objective was to get these migrants to Great Britain.
According to
La Nouvelle République
, these would be Kurdish undocumented immigrants.
The smugglers would have collected nearly 700,000 euros.
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While they were to be tried in immediate appearance on February 16, the hearing was finally postponed to March 27.
All were placed in pre-trial detention.
At the beginning of February, the maritime prefecture indicated that some 36,000 migrants attempted to reach England in 2023 by illegally crossing the Channel from the French coast, reports AFP.
A figure down by more than 30% over one year.
This drop is
“to be credited to the action of internal security forces who save lives in a preemptive manner and prevent the flow from entering
,” declared the maritime prefect.
The 2023 toll, however, remains the second highest ever recorded, higher than that of 2021 (28,526).
The prefect had also highlighted
“something new”
in recent months:
“certain migrants in distress do not accept our assistance.
They accept it as a last resort because their priority is to go to Britain
.