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Italian Police – Archives
On Saturday, Italian police arrested 19 suspects and dismantled what authorities describe as a criminal organization that was transporting migrants from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan to Italy and then to northern Europe.
The investigation, led by prosecutors in Catania, Sicily, uncovered a network of rented or stolen dhows transporting migrants to Italy via Turkey and Greece.
Some of them then traveled north to the French border and were smuggled into France by car thanks to human smugglers stationed in border towns, police said in a statement.
Police said the suspects arrested included Iraqi, Afghan and Italian Kurds.
One of the alleged group’s rules was in Bari, southern Italy, where forged documents were issued indicating that immigrants had a home, a requirement for obtaining residence permits.
The other bases were in Milan and Turin in northern Italy, as well as in the city of Ventimiglia, near the French border.
Authorities said others allegedly involved in the scheme forged employment contracts so that migrants could apply for permission to reside in Italy.
The investigation began in 2018, after 10 ships arrived near the city of Syracuse, in eastern Sicily. The ships had sailed from Turkey and Greece in the eastern Mediterranean, not from Libya, where most of the hundreds of thousands of migrants had been leaving for Italy for years in smugglers’ ships unfit to sail.
Police said the investigation confirmed the activities of a network of Italians and foreigners, most of whom had residence permits issued on the basis of international protection. The episode was “dedicated to facilitating the entry, stay and transit to northern Europe for immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Police said one of the suspects was about to transfer the migrants from the Ventimiglia train station to France, a smugglers’ destination.
He claimed that a group of pilots associated with sailboats to Sicily received around $ 1,000 (800 euros) per crossing, while each migrant paid around 6,000 euros ($ 7,200) to be illegally taken out of Asia via Turkey and Greece to Italy. .
The police added that the smuggling network infiltrated by the Italian authorities was “an essential link to criminal groups active in Turkey and Greece.”
