A total of 40 years in prison and fines running into the millions: German, Italian and Belgian security authorities have dismantled a professional smuggling ring. The starting point of the investigation, which the Munich Federal Police is now reporting on, was an incident at the airport in Erdinger Moos.
There was a type private jet there on October 9, 2020 Hawker Beechcraft 400A landed. The inmates – a couple, 49 and 44 years old, and their two children – showed diplomatic ID cards from the tiny Caribbean state of St. Kitts and Nevis. The documents turned out to be forged. The Iraqi family had paid more than 60,000 euros to get to Europe from Turkey.
Investigators from the federal police at Munich Airport and the Landshut public prosecutor’s office found evidence of a smuggling network and then had several suspicious flights to Memmingen Airport canceled. There were similar smuggling cases to Austria, Italy, France and Great Britain. The criminal smuggling organization had forged identification documents and apparently also checks in order to build up its own fleet.
The migrants, mostly Iraqis and Iranians of Kurdish origin, boarded private planes in Turkey with fake diplomatic passports. The official travel destinations, mostly in the Caribbean, became loud Europol but never achieved. During stopovers at various European airports, the migrants got off the plane, disposed of their fake passports and applied for asylum.
The European security authorities Europol and Eurojust got involved, and a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) took over the coordination. The investigators were able to identify a main suspect in 2021: an Egyptian man living with his wife, who was also a suspect, in a suburb of the Belgian capital Brussels.
Simultaneous arrests in Brussels and Rome
On September 13, 2022, the couple was arrested by Belgian police. German and Italian investigators were there. During a search of the property and a rented aircraft hangar, 30,000 euros in cash, a counterfeit workshop and two small aircraft were discovered, among other things. Other accomplices, including the two brothers of the alleged main perpetrator, were arrested in Italy at the same time. A Brussels court has now passed sentence on seven members of the smuggling gang. According to the federal police, the head of the gang was sentenced to ten years in prison and a fine of almost 1.3 million euros.