Police on Wednesday executed arrest
orders against 29 people suspected of belonging to a
transnational criminal organization that trafficked migrants and
refugees from Greece and Turkey to Italy.
The preliminary investigations lasted nearly four years and were
coordinated by the Anti-Mafia District Directorate of Catanzaro.
The suspects face possible charges related to facilitation of
illegal immigration and money laundering.
They are said to have belonged to three cells operating out of
Italy, Greece and Turkey with the aim of trafficking refugees
and migrants by sailboat via the eastern Mediterranean to
southern Italy.
In a statement police said the organization had overseen "the
arrival at destination of thousands of migrants, in transit to
Italy via the so-called Balkan sea route, by using sail boats
captained by mostly Russian-speaking traffickers".
The migrants and refugees reportedly paid around 10,000 euros
for the sea crossing.
The traffickers also provided food and accommodation at several
stopping places in Italy, including Crotone, Lecce, Brindisi,
Foggia, Grosseto, Imperia, Milan, Turin and Trieste, the
statement said.
The government of Premier Giorgia Meloni has made clamping down
on irregular migration and combatting migrant trafficking a topo
priority, and in March it introduced a broad package of measures
affecting asylum procedures, protection and reception, among
other things.
The measures, dubbed the Cutro decree after the February 26
migrant boat shipwreck off Cutro in Calabria in which 94
refugees and migrants are known to have died, also include new
stiffer penalties for migrant traffickers.
80 people survived the disaster, which occurred after their boat
broke up in rough waters just a few dozen metres from the
Italian shore after five days' sailing from Turkey.
Four people were arrested on suspicion of being the traffickers.
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