People-smuggling crackdown sees 75 arrested across Europe

75 PEOPLE were arrested across Europe in a massive police crackdown on a people-smuggling racket that brought illegal immigrants from Asia to Britain and Scandinavia, policing agency Europol said yesterday.

About 1,300 officers took part in Operation Baghdad in 10 countries, arresting two dozen in France, among them a “network boss”, and dozens more in Ireland, Germany, Greece, Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain.

“All suspects are said to be involved in the clandestine smuggling of a large number of illegal immigrants into and within the European Union,” said a joint statement by Europol and Eurojust — a network of European judicial authorities.

“This was one of the largest co-ordinated actions against people smugglers ever...”

The operation targeted a network comprising mainly Iraqi nationals and former nationals who co-ordinated the illegal immigration of citizens from Afghanistan, China, Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq.

“It transported them to various EU member states, such as Ireland, the UK and Scandinavian countries,” said the statement.

“Each of the persons being smuggled is believed to have paid between €10,000 and €12,000, depending on the means of transportation and final destination.”

In France, one of the main organisers is suspected of having smuggled some 280 people between July 2007 and January this year.

“The illegal immigrants usually travelled in cramped conditions in camping cars, coaches or boats from Iraq via Turkey to Europe. Exceptionally, immigrants were smuggled via airplane.

The statement said illegal immigrants were arrested in the investigation phase of the raid.

A source close to the probe said the operation was the result of two years of planning.

According to the statement, Europol prepared the intelligence reports and co-ordinated police operations while Eurojust was in charge of the co-ordinated issuing of European arrest warrants.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said those arrested in France were of Moroccan, Tunisian, Turkish and French origin.

The network ringleaders face sentences of 10 years in jail and fines of €750,000.

A spokesman from Britain’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency said Operation Baghdad had “resulted in the arrest of over 75 people across Europe, including a number of arrests in the UK”.

The spokesman refused to divulge how many arrests were made in Britain or exactly where, saying only that they were “in a number of locations”.

He said it would be “inappropriate” to comment further due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.