It is a "large-scale operation" which we welcome at the Ministry of the Interior.
On Tuesday, about fifteen Nigerians and Nigeriens were arrested as they were routing Nigerian nationals to Libya to try to reach Europe (Greece and Italy).
Three of them were arrested while transporting around 20 migrants to Zinder, in southern Niger.
Hosts and smugglers were thus arrested in Kano in Nigeria, source city of the network, but also in Agadez and Maradi, in Niger, where about fifteen migrants were accommodated while awaiting their future departure.
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The fifteen people involved in this trafficking were imprisoned for international trafficking of migrants in an organized gang.
“On average, migrants, the real victims of these smugglers, pay between 15,000 and 20,000 euros for their trip.
A considerable sum for which they are forced to work in inhuman conditions in Libya but also in Europe to reimburse, we observe at the Directorate for International Security Cooperation (DCIS).
If they do not repay their debt, the traffickers then put pressure on the families.
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150 routes of smugglers dismantled since December 2019
This dismantling of a criminal network, initiated by infiltrated sources on the ground and after three months of investigation, was carried out from Niamey (Niger) where a team of six police officers, three French belonging to the border police (PAF) and three Spaniards, accompany 12 Nigerien investigators in the fight against this trafficking.
This international cooperation, funded to the tune of six million euros for three years by the EU, also allows the deployment in these countries of the Sahel of technical means of investigation such as operating software for telephones.
“It will take further investigations, including the exploitation of seized phones, to possibly see if they had rear bases in European countries.
But also assess the extent of the traffic, ”provides DCIS.
The Ministry of the Interior, which is also proud of the results of the DCIS, which fights against the smuggling of migrants, terrorism and human trafficking, manages around thirty projects in several “third” countries, including ten in the Sahel.
Since December 2019, 150 networks of migrant smugglers have been dismantled and 543 “traffickers” imprisoned in Niger or elsewhere.
To which it will therefore be necessary to add the net of this Tuesday.
