BERLIN: German police commandos carried out a series of pre-dawn raids Wednesday against an alleged Iraqi-Kurdish network accused of smuggling migrants to Britain.
More than 500 officers searched locations in multiple German cities in an operation coordinated with Europol and French security service, police said.
The network is accused of the “smuggling of irregular migrants from the Middle East and East Africa to France and the UK using ... low-quality inflatable boats,” German police said in a statement.
Police searched residential properties and storage facilities on the basis of search and arrest warrants issued by a French court in Lille, according to police.
The raids targeted properties in Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Grevenbroich, Bochum and other cities, including a refugee home in Essen, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported.
More than 20 French investigators and three Europol officials were assisting, police said.
The raids follow an investigation by Belgian, French and German authorities into another Iraqi-Kurdish smuggling network that led to 19 arrests earlier this year.
The suspects, all based in Germany, organized the purchase, storage and transport of inflatable boats to smuggle migrants from beaches near the French city of Calais to Britain, The Hague-based Europol said.
Migrant-smuggling via small boats has been on the rise since 2019 and two years later overtook the practice of hiding people in the back of lorries.
Last year, around 30,000 migrants and 600 boats reached Britain, according to Europol.