Raids across Europe by hundreds of police officers have dismantled an alleged people-smuggling operation that transported migrants across the English Channel in flimsy boats.
German police raided properties and warehouses in four states used by the Iraqi–Kurdish network. The smugglers are suspected of charging migrants from the Middle East and East Africa thousands of euros each to take the perilous journey from France to the UK, in death-trap vessels.
More than 660 German Federal Police officers, thought to include the elite GSG9 special forces unit, were involved in the Europol-run operation, which led to 25 arrests. A further 15 arrests were made in Belgium and France. The investigation, under a task force named 'Wave', has lasted a year and half.
Life jackets and fuel cans were seized by German police. Earlier this year, dinghies and engines were confiscated.
The arrests come after the conviction of an asylum seeker in the UK over the deaths of four migrants who drowned in the English Channel when a flimsy inflatable boat he was piloting sank.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser praised the operation which she said “deals a big and important blow to these unscrupulous criminals, who put people’s lives on the line for the sake of their profit”.
Europol said the "investigation focused on an Iraqi-Kurdish network suspected of smuggling Middle-Eastern and East African irregular migrants from France to the UK with the use of low-quality inflatable boats".
Germany's Interior Ministry said the raids were carried out under 25 European arrest warrants in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Bavaria and Schleswig-Holstein.
Officers swooped on 28 properties in cities including Dusseldorf and Cologne, where the apartment of a suspected smuggler was searched.
Ms Faeser revealed that “more than 660 federal police officers were deployed” in the raids.
“In the past few months, federal police have already secured materials such as inflatable dinghies and engines, which were meant to be used for trafficking across the English Channel to the UK. Fighting organised smuggling crime is a very high priority for us,” she said.
Meanwhile, Italian police said on Wednesday they had arrested 12 suspected human traffickers for allegedly organising high-speed transfers o at least 73 illegal migrants from Tunisia to Europe.
Expert pilots operated the speed boats crossing from Tunisia to Marsala in Sicily between June and September last year, police said in a statement, describing them as "VIP trips".
The traffickers transported relatively small groups of up to 20 people on each of four trips, charging fees of up to €6,000 ($6,500) per person. Normally migrants are charged €1,000 to travel on overcrowded and dangerous boats.
An investigation by The National previously revealed how boats made in Turkey using flimsy materials are transported across Europe then used by criminal gangs to take migrants across the Channel. At least 27 people including a pregnant woman and three children died when a boat sank in 2021.
The arrests in Europe come after Ibrahima Bah was found guilty of the manslaughter of the migrants, who had paid thousands of euros to smugglers for a spot in an overcrowded vessel.
During his trial jurors were told the home-made, low-quality inflatable should have had no more than 20 people on board but tried to carry at least 43 people across the Channel.
Last year, a trafficking kingpin who smuggled 10,000 migrants across the English Channel in small boats, earning up to £260,000 per trip, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in Belgium.
Hewa Rahimpur, 30, arrived in the UK in the back of a lorry, then claimed asylum and investigators say he turned to people-smuggling when he saw the profits that could be made after paying to come to Britain.
The UK’s National Crime Agency seized 60 boats and hundreds of life jackets from a warehouse in Germany used by the criminal operation run by Rahimpur from his house in east London.
The NCA, the UK's equivalent of the FBI, said he had a callous disregard for people's safety, with migrants being lured by adverts posted openly on social media.
Rahimpur was arrested in May 2022 and was extradited to Belgium, where he stood trial in Bruges.
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Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
Major honours
ARSENAL
BARCELONA
- La Liga - 2013
- Copa del Rey - 2012
- Fifa Club World Cup - 2011
CHELSEA
- Premier League - 2015, 2017
- FA Cup - 2018
- League Cup - 2015
SPAIN
- World Cup - 2010
- European Championship - 2008, 2012
The specs: 2018 Nissan Patrol Nismo
Price: base / as tested: Dh382,000
Engine: 5.6-litre V8
Gearbox: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 428hp @ 5,800rpm
Torque: 560Nm @ 3,600rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 12.7L / 100km
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Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
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Total eligible population
About 57.5 million people
51.1 million received a jab
6.4 million have not
Where are the unvaccinated?
England 11%
Scotland 9%
Wales 10%
Northern Ireland 14%
Sting & Shaggy
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The biog
Family: He is the youngest of five brothers, of whom two are dentists.
Celebrities he worked on: Fabio Canavaro, Lojain Omran, RedOne, Saber Al Rabai.
Where he works: Liberty Dental Clinic
Kathryn Hawkes of House of Hawkes on being a good guest (because we’ve all had bad ones)
- Arrive with a thank you gift, or make sure you have one for your host by the time you leave.
- Offer to buy groceries, cook them a meal or take your hosts out for dinner.
- Help out around the house.
- Entertain yourself so that your hosts don’t feel that they constantly need to.
- Leave no trace of your stay – if you’ve borrowed a book, return it to where you found it.
- Offer to strip the bed before you go.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Profile
Co-founders of the company: Vilhelm Hedberg and Ravi Bhusari
Launch year: In 2016 ekar launched and signed an agreement with Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. In January 2017 ekar launched in Dubai in a partnership with the RTA.
Number of employees: Over 50
Financing stage: Series B currently being finalised
Investors: Series A - Audacia Capital
Sector of operation: Transport
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Three stars
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