In a press release published on Thursday, Europol said that as a result of a coordinated investigation, eight people (five in Germany, two in Lithuania and one in Poland) were detained on Wednesday. A total of 17 sites were searched in those countries, and 12 transfers with 13 intermediaries and 30 migrants were targeted.
The agency reported that a total of 61 people linked to more than 100 smuggling incidents from Belarus to EU countries have been arrested since the beginning of January this year, with those suspected of organizing human smuggling being mainly Syrian and Turkish nationals.
“The migrants recruited in Iraq travelled to Russia via Turkey and then to Belarus before entering the EU through the borders of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland”, the agency said. “The final destinations were predominantly Germany and, to a lesser extent, Finland”.
According to Europol’s press release, the migrants were smuggled into Belarus by air and then transported overland by drivers recruited mainly among Ukrainians across the borders of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland and on to Germany and Finland. The suspected smugglers collected between EUR 3,000 and EUR 15,000 per person, making a total profit of over EUR 16 million, with monetary transactions taking place through the underground "hawala" financial system and cryptocurrencies, Europol noted.
(jh)
Source: PAP