Both Italy and Poland are grappling with organised networks of smugglers who make their money by smuggling convoys of migrants into the European Union.
At a time when Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is trying to impose a new model for managing illegal migratory flows and is encountering hostility from her country’s courts, the Italian police have revealed the existence of a gang active on the Calabrian coast, whose aim was to redirect migrants to various European Union countries.
An investigation carried out in southern Italy in coordination with anti-mafia units led to the arrest of 13 smugglers from Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in Catanzaro, Calabria.
Their organisation, which operated like a travel agency, was based in Crotone. It took charge of migrants who had travelled overland via Turkey and then continued their journey by boat to Crotone. There, they were placed on hold before being directed to Ventimiglia, with the aim of crossing the border into France.
The smugglers held the migrants for ransom at every stage of the journey. The victims, referred to in their jargon as ‘sheep’ or ‘pigeons’, paid between €10,000 and €15,000 to be able to flee their country of origin—a considerable source of profit for the traffickers. Illegal centres for reprocessing the funds collected in this way were also dismantled during the operation led by the Italian police in Ventimiglia, Rome, and Milan.
The same phenomenon was observed on the border between Poland and Belarus. A concerted operation at the European level by a Europol Operational Task Force launched in March 2024 and involving no fewer than eight countries led to the arrest in October of 11 smugglers, mainly Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian.
The smugglers were responsible for transporting migrants who had legally entered Russia or Belarus into the European Union. The criminal organisation recruited drivers and hired vehicles to enable the migrants to transit. The migrants came mainly from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. They were picked up at the border between Poland and Belarus, and then transported by car—most of them to Germany. The total cost of transport was between €5,000 and €6,000 per migrant. 600 illegal migrants are said to have benefited from this network.
The Polish and Italian governments, now on opposite sides of the political divide, find themselves fighting the same evils—forcing states to take specific measures that are not always to the liking of the European Union.
