European police forces in recent weeks have dismantled an illegal migrant smuggling network that brought people from Vietnam across the EU to Britain, earning itself up to €3 million in recent years, EU law enforcement cooperation agency Europol said on Thursday.
Eight people were arrested in France, Germany and Hungary on March 29 and 30, including the alleged leader and a "high-level" organiser of the network that targeted Vietnamese nationals seeking to reach Britain and organised the whole journey for them, Europol said.
Illegal migrants were first smuggled into the EU's free-travel zone on Hungarian-issued short-stay visas or residence permits and were then flown to France. There they were put in accommodation around Paris and later transported to the coast in northern France from where they made the crossing to Britain in small inflatable boats organised by a Kurdish-Iraqi illegal migrant smuggling network, Europol said.
The networks together were seen to have transported at least 15 illegal migrants per month, charging them up to €22,000 ($25,660) for the full journey.
"This suggests that the criminal syndicate has generated up to €3 million in revenue over the past years," Europol said.
Thousands of illegal migrants cross the English Channel every year, as social media and other online services make it relatively easy for smuggling networks to promote their services and hide their profits.
"Digitalisation enhances every stage of the activity," Europol said. "Allowing these networks to operate with greater speed, efficiency, and resilience, while remaining challenging for law enforcement and judicial authorities to detect and disrupt."
About 41,500 people crossed the channel last year, according to data from the University of Oxford's Migration Observatory. On Thursday, at least four people died when a small boat carrying illegal migrants seeking to reach Britain sank in the channel.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Hugh Lawson)