A high-level police operation.
France, Germany and Belgium, under the aegis of Europol and Eurojust, have dismantled
“one of the most important”
migrant smuggling networks,
Le Figaro
learned from the European police agency criminal Europol this Thursday February 22.
Nineteen individuals were arrested on Wednesday in Germany: five
“high value targets”
, namely the main organizer and his main
“lieutenants”
, and 14 other people involved
“at different levels”
of the organization, a source tells us close to the file.
The network, whose members are Iraqi and Syrian nationals of Kurdish origin, is suspected of having smuggled illegal migrants from the Middle East and East Africa from France to the United Kingdom. United, via the Channel.
To do this, the suspects, all based in Germany, purchased “low quality”
inflatable boats en masse ,
imported from China via Turkey, before transporting them to the beaches of Calais, in the north of France.
These boats, usually used by amateur fishermen, cannot theoretically accommodate more than ten people.
But the criminal gang did not hesitate to cram around fifty migrants onto a single boat.
The migrants had to give between 1000 and 3000 euros to the arrested individuals to secure a place on the boat.
The dismantling of a network of migrant smugglers by Europol
Access the slideshow (5)
Eight crossings per night
“Highly professionalized”
, the network could organize up to eight Channel crossings per night, according to Europol.
At least 55 crossings were facilitated by the group, according to investigators.
The gang was logistically organized into various branches to transport nautical equipment to Calais.
Some suspects specialized in driving trucks across Western Europe, transporting up to eight boats per trip.
Each truck was accompanied by an
“opening car” –
a device usually seen in go-fasts, at the heart of drug trafficking – which warns its accomplices of possible roadblocks or police checks.
The border police and the Specialized Inter-Regional Jurisdiction (JIRS) of Lille participated in the investigations, which lasted a year and a half.
33 French investigators were deployed to Germany on the day of the operation.
German authorities deployed more than 650 agents to carry it out.
28 places were searched: 19 houses and 9 storage places, mainly in the west of the country.
12 inflatable boats, 179 life jackets, 81 children's flotation devices, 60 air pumps, 10 motors, weapons and cash were seized.
Germany is regularly cited by investigators as one of the rear bases for the trafficking of inflatable boats intended for Channel crossings.
Migrant smuggling is
“always a deadly threat
,” Europol stressed.
Nearly 30,000 migrants crossed the Channel illegally in 2023 on small boats, down from the record reached in 2022 (45,000).