EU police smash small-boat smuggling ring

Raid over a year in the planning targets traffickers who took thousands of migrants across channel

and in Berlin

MEMBERS of the most active human trafficking rings that smuggles tens of thousands of migrants across the English Channel in small boats have been arrested during a raid.

Almost 1,000 police officers, including Germany’s elite GSG9 special forces, were involved in a series of spectacular dawn raids across the country. The operation, which took a year and a half to plan and involved Belgian and French law enforcement officers, targeted an Iraqi-kurdish network of people smugglers, Europol said.

The gang is suspected of taking migrants from the Middle East and East Africa to France and on to the UK in “low-quality inflatable boats”, the EU’S law enforcement agency, which coordinated the operation, said.

Raids were carried out at houses and storage spaces in four regional states – Hesse, Bavaria, Schleswig-holstein and North Rhine-westphalia – yesterday morning. In North Rhine-westphalia, the hub of the operation, about 900 officers were involved. More than 28 properties were searched in Cologne, Detmold and Bergischen-gladbach and 25 suspects were detained under European arrest warrants by armed police. Europol said more than 15 individuals were arrested, but further details would not be released until later today.

The network is suspected of being involved in the procurement of boats to cross the English Channel. To help prevent crossings to the UK, the purchase of certain boats and engines has been tightened in northern France.

The raid is understood to be con- nected to a Europol operation in 2022, when dozens of small boats and large amounts of cash and firearms were confiscated from

Saxony.

The news will be welcomed by Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, who has vowed to “stop the boats” as he attempts to boost his flagging poll ratings ahead of an election this year. Mr Sunak has used improved UK-EU relations after the new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland was finalised to secure deals on migration with France and an intelligence-sharing agreement with Frontex, the EU’S border agency.

In January, Frontex said that there had been 3,168 illegal exits from the EU towards the UK across the Channel – 4 per cent less than in December 2023. Most of the migrants were from Iran, Afghanistan or an unknown country, the EU border guard said.

Meanwhile, Italian police said on yesterday they had arrested 12 suspected human traffickers for allegedly organising high-speed boat transfers for at least 73 illegal migrants from Tunisia to Europe. Expert pilots operated speed boats that crossed the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Marsala in Sicily between June and September last year, police said, describing them as “VIP trips”.

The traffickers transferred relatively small groups of up to 20 people on each of four trips, charging fees of up to €6,000 (£5,138) per person. The trip, on a crowded and less seaworthy vessel, would normally cost less than €1,000 per migrant.

Six Tunisians and six Italians were detained as part of the investigation, which was coordinated by Europol and Italy’s anti-mafia police unit. A formertunisian police officer was identified as the head of the operation.