Last Tuesday, 15 traffickers, from several countries and members of a network, were arrested for smuggling hundreds of migrants to Britain, AFP learned Monday from a police source.
This network, made up of Iraqi-Kurds, Romanians, Pakistanis and Vietnamese, went to look for migrants in camps in Grande-Synthe, in the north, and made them cross to Great Britain by boat. These boats were transported to the French coast from China via Turkey and then Germany.
“A network of hardened and organized criminals”
According to the survey, which began in October 2020, the network passed “a minimum of 250 people per month”, or four “zodiac” type boats, which can carry around 60 people. All these people had to pay a “pack” of 6,000 euros to reach Great Britain. A tariff that has allowed traffickers to accumulate around 3 million euros in profits, according to the Central Office for the Suppression of Irregular Immigration and the Employment of Foreigners Without a Title (Ocriest).
“As the investigation progressed, the network became industrialized. It was a network of well-hardened and organized criminals thanks to the complicity of drivers, occult bankers and people who detected the police beacons ”, explained to AFP Xavier Delrieu, the head of the Ocriest in charge of the investigation carried out by the Dunkirk prosecutor’s office.
Last Tuesday, in connection with the Raid and the BRI, fifteen people were arrested, and around 40,000 euros were seized in cash.
According to the maritime prefect of the Channel and the North Sea, Philippe Dutrieux, 31,500 attempts to leave for Great Britain have been recorded while 7,800 people have been rescued since the beginning of the year, figures which have since doubled. August.