in Calais, highly organized migrant smugglers
DECRYPTION – Today, the candidates for exile who try to cross the Channel are obliged to afford the services of smugglers. Often migrants themselves, they obey international mafia networks.
Over the past year and the proliferation of “smallboats” as the main means of reaching the United Kingdom, Calais has become “A kingdom of smugglers and traffickers”, to use the words of the parliamentary committee of inquiry on migration in its report of November 16. Who are these invisible hands that establish borders and the lives of migrants?
Read alsoMigrants: smugglers more than ever in the crosshairs
Since January 1, 2021, no less than 32 channels of smugglers have been dismantled in Pas-de-Calais, according to the Northern Border Police. “We have already arrested Eritreans, Iraqis, Kurds, but also Asians and Albanians… ”, observes Philippe Dupré, delegate of the SGP-Police unit union on the Opal Coast. “In the first degree, the smugglers are of the same nationality as those who wish to cross the Channel. They speak the language and have the role of relay with their customers. Often, they are themselves migrants, who wish to obtain a nest egg before reaching England ”, says Didier Leschi, director general of the French Immigration Office.
Organized crime
But these are not just small hands, maneuvered by large-scale, much more structured networks. According to specialists interviewed by Le Figaro, there are in fact two main types of channels. So-called “artisanal” ones, which are organized by community according to needs. “They are often migrants from the Horn of Africa, who will buy their boats themselves, often without foresight ”, says Philippe Dupré. The boats are then summary and extremely dangerous, some migrants having tried to cross the Channel by canoe.
Read alsoDidier Leschi: “The situation in Calais can only satisfy the smugglers”
Jean-Philippe Nahon, director of the northern border police. “We are dealing with very well organized mafia-type networks. They are often Iraqo-Kurds and have intermediaries in all countries.s ”, declares Jean-Philippe Nahon “These channels bring in boats from China, then they pass through Turkey, and finally through Germany and Belgium. In this case, men are only paid to carry the boats, life jackets and gasoline. Others are recruited to find clients ”. The transit offers are diverse and varied: these channels offer migrants to embark for around 3000 euros. Others are taken care of directly from their country of origin: they are then promised, a price of up to 8,000 euros, full transport to Calais, “Followed by a promise of employment in the United Kingdom”, continues Jean-Philippe Nahon. “These networks are often used as drug networks ”, adds Philippe Dupré. “Few telephony, encrypted messaging, enormous resources and scouts who detect possible police checks”.
Thinking heads abroad
At the head of its networks, figures of organized crime, often far from the migrant camps of Pas-de-Calais. “The chefs are abroad, for the most part. Either in Iraq, or perhaps in England ”, according to Olivier Cahn, lecturer in criminal law at the University of Cergy and author of a thesis on Franco-British police cooperation in the cross-Channel area. “They command mafia organizations probably linked to other criminal activities, such as prostitution, exploitation, arms trafficking … They command strategic missions and deal with money laundering. In Europe, there are only operational intermediaries», Continues Olivier Cahn.
Read alsoMigrants: a vast criminal network of smugglers dismantled in Calaisis
How to fight against these international criminal networks? Specialized border police investigators, together with the Central Office for the Suppression of Irregular Immigration and the Employment of Untitled Foreigners (Ocriest), conduct investigations in order to trace these channels to the highest level. A vast Iraqi-Kurdish network which had accumulated more than three million euros in profit was dismantled on November 16. “We have several international cooperation mechanisms to strengthen the exchange of intelligence, such as Europol for example,” explains Jean-Philippe Nahon. “The problem is that these sectors are changing very quickly. They adapt to the controls in placeHe continues.
“We can see that they do not always follow the same circuits», Confirms Philippe Dupré. “We can intervene at the end of the chain, to prevent migrants from coming up, but we need a large number of staff. Bringing together such structured sectors is extremely time-consuming, especially since they have branches in all European countries ”. To then have to … start over. “The dismantling certainly disrupts for some time, but the sectors are reconstituted very quickly. The fight is above all symbolic ”, conclusion Olivier Cahn.