Four Afghans have been arrested in France and Germany on suspicion of migrant smuggling after an invesitgation was initiated by the Italian Carabinieri police based in Reggio Calabria.
Four persons of Afghan nationality were arrested by the Carabinieri of the provincial unit of Reggio Calabria in France and Germany as part of an inquiry in to migrant smuggling.
Teams from the Carabinieri (military police force) executed the orders of the pre-trial custody measures requested by the GIP (the preliminary investigations judge) in Calabria.
Three of the persons subject to the restrictive measures were arrested in France, in La Rochelle, and in Marseille while one was apprehended in the town of Hanau, Germany.
People abandoned in the Alps
As part of the operation, known as "Parepidemos", the Carabinieri arrested the Afghan nationals, named as Mohammad YY (43), Mohammad SG (53), Narbhai A (33) and Mohammad JA (42). The latter was taken in to custody in Germany, while the other three individuals under investigation were arrested in France.
The inquiry began in October 2020, when the Carabinieri noticed one of the four persons arrested, Mohammad YY, with a van bearing a French license plate in Bova Marina in Calabria, parked near a shelter center where migrants who had just arrived in Italy during the pandemic were being kept for temporary health isolation measures.
Further inquiries, ordered by the anti-mafia district department (Dda), led to the tracing of the alleged movements of the Afghan who is believed to have loaded 10 Afghans in the van and driven across Italy, stopping in the regions of Abruzzo, Lombardy, and Liguria, and finally exiting Italian territory in the Alps, towards France.
Stopped by the Italian police
Prior to entering the Frejus pass, however, the suspect is believed to have left the migrants in the mountains a few kilometers from the border. Right after this occurrence, the man was stopped by the Carabinieri at the station of Bardonecchia and he was the only person in the van.
On the back seats, there were some suitcases in which baby nappies and clothes that did not belong to the individual under investigation, were found.
Furthermore, police said the van had been custom-fitted in the back to hide people. Abandoning the migrants, among them some minors, in the mountains, in the cold exposed to all harsh weather conditions, led the Prefecture in Reggio Calabria to charge the individual concerned with aggravating charges for having exposed the people he is accused of transporting in his van with life-threatening behavior.
Police said that phone interceptions they have recorded from the suspect reveal that the person under investigation expected to be paid prior to the trip for his services. They said he then asked for money to go and save the people he is accused of abandoning in the alps. According to police, the man wrote: "If you pay my €1,300 I will go and get them."
This first suspect was arrested by French police on November 4 2020 in the town of Montgenevre, while attempting to cross the border with six Afghans who did not have papers. Police added aggravated charges to his record sheet, accusing him of treating the migrants with a total lack of dignity and humanity by concealing them in his van.
Multiple agencies involved
Italian police worked on the case with two European agencies, Eurojust and Europol as well as the Anti-Mafia Investigative Division (Dda) in Reggio Calabria. The agencies worked together to trace the alleged transport supply line of the migrant smugglers. By tracing the movements of the migrants and those who are accused of smuggling them, they found a route stretching from Turkey, through Italy, France and on in to Germany.
According to the district GIP judge in Reggio Calabria, Vincenzo Quaranta, in fact, Mohammad YY was part of "a transnational organization system that manages and ensures clandestine and illegal access to migrants in various European countries."
For this reason, he is accused of being the promoter, organizer, and driver for the group of migrant smugglers. Mohammad SG is accused of acting as an intermediary between Mohammad YY and the migrants relatives during the journey between southern Italy and France. Narbahi was apprehended in southern France (Marseilles) on charges of sheltering the migrants who arrived from Italy. Lastly, in Germany, Mohammad JA, was identified as the person receiving the money for the migrants' journey.
According to the investigators, the four persons arrested represent a local cell on the continent that is responsible for migrants who arrive in the region of Reggio Calabria and are placed in shelters, to travel onwards towards central European destinations.
'Hawala' system used to pay for trips
The Carabinieri say the alleged smugglers used the 'Hawala' system to receive payment. The system is based on informal brokering and non-contractural relations and is used heavily across the Middle East and in south Asian countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The system works, by allowing a person wanting to send money to another country to another person to contact an intermediary broker the so-called "hawalder", and give him the sum to be sent. The latter then contacts his counterpart in the receiving country, giving him the order to pay the destined subject the agreed sum while keeping a commission fee.
The "Parepidemos" inquiry has shown how each migrant is alleged to have paid €1,500 to those under inquiry for the transport service from the location where they had landed by sea to France.
The investigating judge Quaranta, believes that the suspects arrested are part of a much wider group and "linked to subjects handling the clandestine transfer of migrants from their country of origin to the Italian coastline."