In Italy there was a land route which, after landing on the Ionian coast of Calabria, allowed migrants to reach France or other Northern European states. She is convinced of it Catanzaro prosecutor’s office who for this reason requested and obtained the arrest of thirteen people of Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghan origin identified between Bologna, Brescia, Crotone, Rome, Imperia, Milan and Vibo Valentia.
With various roles – emerges from the investigations of the Guardia di Finanza – they would have had a role along the land route or in the management of the “tariffs” that those who disembarked were obliged to pay to the organization of passeurs.
According to what emerged from the investigation of pm Paolo Sirleo coordinated by the acting deputy prosecutor Vincenzo Capomolla the organization – evidently aware of the arrivals on the eastern route – was aimed mostly at Iraqi Kurds, who try to reach Europe from Türkiye. That’s everyone “transients”people who arrive on the Italian coasts with the aim of reaching other European countries, in the specific case Great Britain and Northern Europe, where there are historic and structured Kurdish refugee communities.
Migrants called “sheep” or “pigeons”
The passers were in contact with the networks that in Greece and Turkey handle the first part of the crossing. Shortly after landing, they hosted the castaways in some houses in the Crotone area, then “assisted” them along the journey to the border with France, on board buses or trains headed to Milan and from there to the border of Ventimiglia, where another network managed the border crossing. Obviously all at a very high price. The cost of the trip ranged between one thousand and fifteen hundred euros.
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The payments – it emerged from the investigations – took place on the hawala networkthe ancient system of informal remittances still in use in the Middle East and part of Asia which allows capital to transit from one part of the world to another and has long been used by those transiting on the eastern Mediterranean route. These are mostly Kurds, Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis and Palestinians fleeing from conflicts, regimes or political persecution who pay the necessary fee to undertake the journey in Turkey. All people who on paper in Italy have no difficulty obtaining asylum, but prefer to continue across the border. And the passers – who when intercepted called them “sheep” or “pigeons” – made themselves available.
Stratospheric costs and profits
The money – the Catanzaro prosecutor’s office discovered today – also in this case was paid into some shops managed by hawaladera sort of “exchange agents”, close to the organization who communicated the receipt of the sum to their counterparts in other cities or countries. Transactions of which there is no trace, except in the receipt that the broker generally issues to the transitee or in the informal accounting of the organization and which have cost the network of passeurs a charge of money laundering.
And over time a river of money was washed. Those who attempted to leave Italy were charged 1,000 euros for tickets for buses and trains to Liguria, compared to a cost of around fifty. Speaking of the earnings accumulated with his activity as a passeur, one of the arrested states, reports the investigating judge, that “when he arrived in Italy he could not afford to buy cigarettes, in 2014 he had made a profit of 65 thousand euros”.
Meloni: “Enough human trafficking”
“The government is determined to dismantle these criminal networks and to eradicate the illegal trafficking of human beings, which fuels the interests of the slavers of the Third Millennium”, says Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on the eve of the Council of Ministers convened specifically to try to give a legal framework more solid to the protocol with Albania “We want to defend our borders and re-establish a fundamental principle: you can only enter Italy legally”
Piantedosi: “We must continue on the path taken”
“The picture that emerges from the complex investigations confirms the need to continue along the path undertaken by this government to combat with every means, including preventive ones, the unscrupulous criminals who enrich themselves by putting the very lives of migrants at risk”, underlines the Minister of ‘Internal Matteo Piantedosi. “All this makes it clear how important it is to overcome the sometimes ideological positions of those who continue to support indiscriminate reception even when this ends up, in fact, favoring the shameful interests of criminal groups”
