The criminals behind this network are responsible for at least two deaths. The migrants took the Balkan route and were transported to Germany and the United Kingdom, in particular.
A vast dragnet that puts an end to years of impunity. A sprawling migrant smuggling network was dismantled by no fewer than 450 police officers across the Old Continent, European police agency Europol said.
25 people were arrested in total: six in Austria, three in Bosnia-Herzegovina, four in Germany, five in Poland, six in Serbia and one in the United Kingdom. Among them, three targets “high value”particularly sought after for their influence in criminal spheres.
One of them, an Iraqi citizen, is suspected of being the leader of this organization. He was arrested in the United Kingdom, after being the subject of an arrest warrant issued by Poland. During their searches in around 30 different buildings, authorities seized vehicles, electronic equipment and large sums of cash.
Local criminal groups and “hawala”
The criminal group had been active since 2021. It had invaded 20 countries, posting its collaborators on the famous «Balkan route » : the one used by thousands of migrants arriving from Africa or the Middle East each year to cross Europe and reach, in the majority of cases, the United Kingdom, Germany or the Netherlands. Highly organized, the network, mainly made up of Syrian nationals, entered into contracts with local criminal groups to provide migrants with transport and accommodation.
But that was about the only comfort they enjoyed: the rest of the time, the little hands of the network were violent towards them. The traffickers were so brutal that during a trip to the heart of Latvia, two Syrian migrants died. The network did not stop there, and was also involved in other criminal activities, such as money laundering and violent crimes.
Each migrant wishing to reach Europe had to pay between 4,500 and 12,000 euros, depending on the route taken and the “comfort” propose. Money transfers were carried out through“operators hawala ». This payment system, encouraged by the Koran which condemns usury and therefore, for its most fervent supporters, interest-bearing loans, aims to abandon banks in favor of a simple sending of funds, which pass through operators into operators. These may be managers of grocery stores or other small businesses. In this case, the criminal network had a primary operator in Türkiye, who sent or received funds to or from secondary operators across Europe.
The network is suspected of having brought at least 2,200 migrants to Germany alone. For the year 2024, initial investigations point to a figure of 750 migrants. Investigators estimate that the network illegally collected 3.4 million euros.
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