A French judge, Arabelle Bouts, recently presided over a Europe-wide people smuggling trial which has generated 67 tonnes of paperwork. In the trial, which involves a total of 33 alleged members of a Kurdish smuggling gang, the accused are accused of responsibility for the bulk of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats between 2020 and 2022. The gang is accused of overloading the small boats with up to 15 times more people than the boats are designed to carry. The result was a “phenomenal” profit margin for the gangs, who made up to €60,000 ($65,000; £50,000) for each boat launched, with roughly half of those boats reaching UK waters, leading to an income for the gang of €3.5m ($3.8m; £2.9m) a year.
The gang controlled the lion’s share of all Channel crossings from the French coast through its network that delivered equipment from across Europe. Its members were arrested in France, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, as part of the largest international operation of its kind at the time. Seventeen men and one woman are now on trial, with 12 already convicted and three more to be tried next year.
While lead prosecutor Julie Carros set out the prosecution’s case against each of the accused, there were gasps of disappointment from at least two relatives seated in the courtroom, at the long sentences being demanded. The trial is expected to end in early November. The sentences sought by Carros include a 15-year prison sentence, a €200,000 ($217,000) fine, and a permanent ban from French territory for Mirkhan Rasoul, who is accused of continuing to control the gang from a prison in central France.
Pascal Marconville, lead prosecutor at the regional Court of Appeal for northern France, suggested that the long sentences were part of a broader strategy to raise the cost of smuggling for the gangs and their customers. He described how the gangs had evolved in recent years from informal groups supporting their own countrymen to “networks organized much like drug gangs”.
Despite the difficulties for law enforcement officials working across different countries and laws related to bail and standards of evidence, Marconville praised the collaboration between French and British officials, saying the UK was “very willing to come up with solutions to improve cooperation”. However, one of the defense lawyers involved in this case played down its broader impact on the small boat crisis. Kamal Abbas, who is defending one of the accused, explained how three of those in detention were arrested soon afterward in Belgium on fresh smuggling charges. Mr. Abbas had another concern about the impact of smuggling trials in general. “[The real leaders] always escape. If their leader is Iraqi, he’s in Iraq. If he’s Iranian, he’ll be in Iran. But the link is often in England, I’m sure of that. The British authorities should look harder at certain areas of London if they want to stop this phenomenon,” said Mr. Abbas
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