At dawn, the Milan state police arrested 10 Egyptian citizens under investigation for transnational criminal association dedicated to aiding and abetting illegal immigration and the abusive exercise of credit activities. There are at least 8 crossings reconstructed by the investigations, started in July 2023, organized on dilapidated boats for the illegal transfer of migrants, always of Egyptian nationality, from the Libyan coasts to those of Italy and Greece and from there to other European countries. One landed in Lampedusa, one in Civitavecchia, 5 on the Greek coast and a further journey, with destination the Italian coast, which ended with a search and rescue activity at sea, after the boat ended up adrift. The traffickers, tracked down and stopped in the provinces of Milan, Florence, Asti, La Spezia and Pavia, had relatives and friends of the foreigners pay between 4 thousand and 6 thousand euros for each migrant for trips to Italy and from 3 thousand to 5 thousand euros to reach the Hellenic coasts. The payment of the agreed sums took place with the hawala “trust” method, an informal money transfer system based on trust in which private individuals make agreements with other private individuals and where the transaction surcharge is generally higher than normal money transfers. In some cases, the suspects would also have been able to obtain residence permits for irregular migrants to guarantee the transfer from Milan to other cities and to evade the regulations of the flow decree which govern the regular entry of foreign workers into Italy and other countries. Europeans. The one defeated by the DDA operation would be a “cell” operating in Milan but part of a larger criminal network with ramifications in Egypt, Libya and Europe capable of managing the so-called ‘safe houses’ in the North African country and finding the assets necessary for migrants to stay, sometimes for months, in Libyan territory, such as food, water, telephones, satellite, telephone cards. Up to the collection of money to pay for the various routes and the identification of the boats used to cross the Mediterranean.
#travel #tariff #wiretaps #Tempo
