German police dismantle international human trafficking ring

German federal police have arrested 19 members of an international human trafficking ring in a major operation across several states. The detainees are accused of illegally bringing large numbers of migrants into Germany since at least April 2019.

On the morning of Tuesday, January 19, around 400 federal police officers in the states of Berlin, Hesse, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia took action against members of an international human trafficking gang and arrested 19 people.

According to Der Spiegel Online, the arrested members of the gang are between 21 and 44 years old and have been involved in the illegal transfer of migrants to Germany via the so-called "Balkan route" since at least April 2019.

Members of this gang were involved in illegally bringing about 140 people, mostly Syrian citizens, into Germany, and received large sums of money from refugees for this work.

Organized human trafficking

In at least 23 cases, evidence has been obtained showing that the illegal transfer of foreigners to Germany was carried out in an organized manner and through criminal actions.

According to the federal police, the pursuit of the gang began in August 2019, when a driver in the group was arrested on a highway near the Austrian border.

The prosecutor of Kempten, a border town in southern Bavaria, in cooperation with officers from several other European countries, succeeded in identifying the leader of this gang in Austria and making it possible to arrest him.

Gang members, citizens of Syria, Libya and Lebanon

According to the prosecutor's office, the arrested individuals are suspected of being members of a human trafficking gang, citizens of Syria, Lebanon, and Libya, and they carried out their criminal acts in a completely planned and professional manner.

To transport illegal immigrants, members of this gang used vehicles that controlled the route and informed them of the possible presence of police officers or checkpoints ahead of the vehicle carrying them.

Illegal immigrants were often forced to cross the borders into the European Union on foot, guided by members of the human trafficking gang. The gang leader controlled the border crossings from a safe distance using his smartphone.

Federal police officers say they had seven arrest warrants and 11 search warrants in the operation on Tuesday morning, and that during their searches of the defendants' residences in various cities, they obtained numerous documents and evidence, including smartphones used at the border.

The Balkan route is one of the main routes for illegal immigrants to enter the European Union, and most of those who take this route via Turkey are Syrian, Lebanese, Libyan, Iraqi, Iranian, and Afghan citizens.

Source: DW