Purchase of boats in Turkey, storage of equipment in the Netherlands: 18 alleged members of a vast network of smugglers, suspected of having organized the passage of thousands of migrants to the United Kingdom, are on trial until October 11 in Lille.
Suspected of having been the logisticians of clandestine crossings of the Channel between July 2020 and July 2022, the defendants, mainly Iraqi-Kurdish, are being prosecuted for “aid for entry to illegal circulation or stay” et “participation in a criminal association”.
Twenty-one defendants were initially to be tried by the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction of Lille, but the trial of three of them, detained in Belgium, was postponed until March 2025.
Only thirteen defendants were present at the hearings which began on Monday.
One of the alleged order givers is a 26-year-old Iraqi. He is suspected of having played a central role in the network, by orchestrating, from his prison cell in Tours then in Le Havre, the crossings of migrants by motorized boats.
He was removed from the hearing on Wednesday after insulting and threatening interpreters.
100,000 euros per boat
According to investigators, this network constituted one of the main groups of Iraqi-Kurdish traffickers with a European dimension for Channel crossings. Its members managed it like a business, where a boat of 50 migrants could bring in up to 100,000 euros. Departures were organized in particular from the Grande-Synthe migrant camp (North).
Most of the defendants “are logisticians who did not deal with migrants”explains the lawyer of one of them, without wanting to give his name.
If some have a “very substantial profile”there are also “toddlers”Who “were replaced the next day”he adds.
Since January, more than 25,000 migrants have arrived on British shores after crossing the Channel aboard makeshift boats, a figure up 4% according to figures from the British Interior Ministry published on September 23. A series of shipwrecks made 2024 the deadliest year since the start of the sea crossing phenomenon. « small boats »the name given to these makeshift inflatable boats, in 2018.
Thursday morning, the court questioned a Dutch man and his Iraqi father about engines and hundreds of life jackets discovered in July 2021 in a garage they rented in the Netherlands, as well as about invoices for boats purchased in Turkey. Not very talkative, the two men disputed these elements, like most of the defendants.
Others are being prosecuted for having organized the transport of migrants by bus from hotels near the coast to French beaches.
“We probably only have small hands, as usual.”estimated Mr. Kamel Abbas, lawyer for one of the defendants, interviewed by AFP. “There may be lieutenants, but network leaders, given the circumstances of the arrest, I don’t believe it”.
On July 6, 2022, an international operation carried out jointly by France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, coordinated by the Europol and Eurojust agencies, led to 39 arrests.
More than 50 searches led to the seizure of 1,200 life jackets, nearly 150 inflatable boats and 50 boat engines, as well as weapons and drugs.
This trial constitutes the second legal part of this case, in which 12 people were already tried last winter in Lille.