People smugglers

The Royal Navy will be needed to perform returns of illegal boat migrants to France in the English Channel, said the union representing the UK Border Force.

The UK has arrested 11 people suspected of being involved in a people-smuggling gang, which is believed to have facilitated illegal boat migrants crossing the English Channel from France, the Home Office has revealed. Police in Britain raided 12 properties

The German Joint Analysis and Strategy Centre for Illegal Migration (Gasim) has claimed that people smugglers in North Africa are actively tracking migrant transport NGO vessels and sending migrants to them.

Armed Albanian people-smuggling gangs are running a new ‘Jungle’ migrant camp in Calais, France, that is packed with over 1,000 people who buy kayaks and surfboards to attempt to cross the English Channel.

An Italian court has sentenced three foreign people-smugglers to 20 years each after they were found guilty of torturing migrants who were attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

The former head of UK Border Force has called illegal boat migration from across the English Channel a “major threat” to Britain’s border security and has called for the British government to adopt a strict Australia-style approach and return illegal aliens to France.

The European Union police agency Europol has warned that people-smuggling activities have surged as member-states soften lockdown measures to contain the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.

Three Turkish men have been sentenced for the killing of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler whose drowning was the catalyst for the 2015-16 migrant crisis. 

MADRID (AP) – Spanish police have arrested 89 people suspected of belonging to a crime ring that smuggled both migrants and hashish from North Africa to mainland Spain.

Pope Francis condemned human trafficking as a “true plague” Sunday, calling for an international effort to eradicate it.

French and Dutch authorities have arrested 23 people in connection with a people-smuggling network that is said to have helped around 10,000 Kurds illegally enter the UK.

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) – Police in North Macedonia found 36 migrants who are believed to have entered the country illegally from Greece packed in a truck during a routine check. The driver was arrested.

Police in several European countries have arrested dozens of suspected Nigerian mafia members as the crime organisation spreads across Italy and elsewhere.

(AP) — An Italian offshore supply vessel brought 151 migrants to Sicily. Hours earlier, a German NGO disembarked 88 migrants at Taranto.

(AP) — Police in Croatia have detained three British citizens for allegedly smuggling migrants, saying one of the men also tried to run over a Croatian police officer.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – Vietnamese police have arrested eight more suspects in connection with the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people who were found dead inside a refrigerated truck container in southeastern England.

Fresh reports have claimed that people smugglers have been chartering luxury yachts to smuggle migrants from Turkey to Europe for as much as 10,000 euros per person.

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) – Police in North Macedonia say they have found 81 migrants hidden in a house near the country’s northern border with Serbia and arrested a suspected migrant trafficker.

(AP) — UK police in Essex say all of the 39 victims found dead in a truck container in southeastern England are now out of the truck and in a mortuary awaiting autopsies.

Ukrainian law enforcement agencies revealed on Wednesday the discovery of a people-smuggling network ferrying illegal migrants from Turkey to European Union countries such as Italy and Greece.

“These deaths are the results of do-gooders, of ‘there is room for everyone’, of open ports, of renewed enthusiasm for the smugglers,” Salvini said.

A people smuggler has claimed French police are helping illegals plan their trips to the UK by telling them which days not to cross the English Channel, suggesting they are telling them when to avoid British border patrols.

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) – North Macedonia police say a 20-year old migrant from Bangladesh was killed and 12 others injured when a van packed with migrants collided with a truck on the main highway in the south.

A commander in the Libyan coasts guard has claimed to have seen direct contact between migrant rescue NGOs working off the Libyan coast and people-smugglers.

Over forty illegal migrants landed in England after taking to sea in boats over the weekend, according to reports.

Two Italian police officers in Naples are among several alleged members of a criminal gang helping to smuggle illegal migrants into Italy, discovered by wiretaps.

MILAN (AP) — France’s interior minister says some aid groups operating in the Mediterranean Sea sometimes act like accomplices to human traffickers.

The Italian secret service has warned that people-smugglers in the Mediterranean may seek to engineer a mass drowning in order to garner Western sympathy and resume the flow of migration.

Criminal people-traffickers are telling would-be illegal migrants they are almost guaranteed residency in Britain because the authorities “never send people back”, an investigation has revealed.

Britain’s former director-general of Immigration Enforcement has warned illegal migrants are using Border Force and lifeboat volunteers as a “taxi service”.