Selma and her husband fled Iran with their two children more than a year ago. After becoming separated at the Greek border, they finally ended up in Germany -- but in two different cities. Now they are desperate to be reunited. This is Selma's story.
47 people were arrested in Gibraltar and Spain during the course of a police operation to break up a smuggling ring operating between Morocco, the British territory of Gibraltar and Spain.
Nine people smugglers have been sentenced to up to ten years in prison, in connection to an incident in the western Mediterranean that led to the death of a young Moroccan migrant in 2018.
A Russian man has been charged with fraud after he constructed a false border post near the Russian border with Finland. Border control authorities said he received 10,000 euros from four South Asian migrants after promising to smuggle them into the EU.
In Niger and the Sahel region in west-central Africa, the trade in goods and people has been big business for centuries. In the last few years, people smuggling was an officially recognized profession. In some cases, smugglers even paid taxes. But in the last year, that business has been experiencing a downturn as a series of laws, passed originally in 2015, have begun to bite, causing the former smugglers to look elsewhere for an income.
German police units coordinated a series of raids on 18 premises across six federal states on November 13 in an operation targeting criminal gangs involved in the illegal smuggling of migrants.
Border restrictions or not, human smuggling from Greece to Western Europe is still happening. InfoMigrants' reporters were recently in the Greek capital to investigate. This is their account.
Police in Australia have charged an Iraqi man with organizing a "people-smuggling venture" that led to more than 350 asylum seekers drowning at sea. The ill-fated boat sank in international waters in 2001.
Many migrants from East Africa choose a route that is less known, cheaper and even more dangerous than the Mediterranean: They cross the Gulf of Aden and land in war-torn Yemen. Many were unaware of the conflict.
Greek police have arrested 15 people suspected of facilitating migrant smuggling on two Greek islands. There are reports they charged up to €6,000 to make false travel documents.
Smugglers are turning to perilous routes through the desert, or even dumping those hoping to reach North Africa. DW visited the transit hub of Agadez where efforts are being made to rescue migrants lost in the Sahara.
Europol set up a new task force in charge of combating human trafficking networks. Its head Robert Crepinko said that in addition to addressing new ways of smuggling, the task force would also deal with the use of fraudulent documents, money laundering and the role of social media in illegal migration. He also stressed that there is a rise in violence among smuggling gangs as a means to maximize profits.