Police in northern Italy on Wednesday said they smashed a criminal gang that allegedly trafficked migrants from North Africa and Central Asia to Italy and on to other European Union countries, arresting 10 people in the operation.
In Wednesday's bust, finance and anti-terrorism police from the city of Lodi said they carried out raids in Milan, Bergamo, Varese and Piacenza as well as other locations in the neighbouring Emilia-Romagna region.
Investigators at the public prosecutor's office in Lodi reconstructed 49 journeys in which hundreds of migrants allegedly paid the gang up to 5,000 euros to be trafficked to Italy, Greece and Turkey, finance police said. The probe, which began in 2017, was then passed to the anti-mafia directorate in Milan, according to finance police.
The traffickers mainly used the Mont Blanc tunnel to smuggle migrants from Italy to France aboard people-carriers, according to investigators.
"The specific modus operandi and circumstances in which the offences were committed appear symptomatic of individuals who were especially used to trafficking and to exploiting the desperation of the (would-be) immigrants," finance police stated.
