Police in the southern Italian city of Naples on Wednesday arrested 13 people for the alleged trafficking and "inhumane" treatment of migrants including denying them food, water and medical treatment.
Ten of the suspects, all of Somali origin, were taken to prison while three were put under house arrest, police said.
The suspects face charges of belonging to a people trafficking organisation that treated migrants inhumanely and endangered their lives, according to police.
Migrants allegedly trafficked by the suspects had been left without food, water or medication for three days, even though some had a high fever and scabies, police cited hospital doctors in Naples as reporting.
The criminal organisation trafficked migrants from Libya to Italy and on to other European countries, according to investigators.
Italian authorities have issued an international arrest warrant for the alleged head of the migrant trafficking gang, a German citizen of Somali origins who is resident in Germany, police said.
A probe by anti-mafia prosecutors in the southern Italian port city of Salerno began in 2015 after an Italian navy ship docked there with 545 Somali migrants on board who had been rescued from the Mediterranean, said police.
