RUTH SHERLOCK: THE INTERNATIONAL SMUGGLING RING BRINGING TURKISH REFUGEES INTO EUROPE
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11292208/The-international-smuggling-ring-paying-off-Western-border-officials-to-bring-refugees-into-Europe.html
The international smuggling ring paying off Western border officials to bring refugees into Europe Smugglers in Istanbul are bribing politicians, police chiefs and border guards in several European countries to turn a blind eye to a racket that is bringing tens thousands of desperate refugees to the continent
Sitting in the bustling open-air Istanbul café, a gold watch heavy on his wrist, the smuggler made little attempt to lower his voice as he spoke of his work illegally routing thousands of desperate refugees to Europe.
The Turkish intelligence agencies knew his job exactly, he said, and so did the police chiefs and border guards of the Western countries he sent his clients to – without them the smuggling operation wouldn’t be possible at all.
“I set up the journeys, but there are men above me who manage the whole network. They have contacts at a very high level [in the police and in governments] in the countries where we work,” said Abu Ali, a people smuggler.
Abu Ali is a key figure in an international smuggling ring that is bribing politicians, police chiefs and border guards in several European countries to turn a blind eye to a racket that is bringing tens thousands of desperate refugees to the continent.
The multi-billion-pound illegal network now extends across Europe to Britain, and as far as Canada. If refugees are able to pay and willing to risk dire, sometimes fatal conditions, smugglers can deliver their clients to European capitals including Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam and Stockholm – in each case with the help of immigration officers, they say.
“We can get you anywhere. We have connections in most European countries and further afield,” said Abu Ali. “And we smuggle from so many places: Turkey, Lebanon, Tunisia and Libya are just some examples.”
A Sunday Telegraph investigation has verified the account given by Abu Ali with refugees who have taken these routes, and with other people smugglers.
The revelations come at a time when Western governments are struggling to find ways to manage a record influx of refugees – an estimated 350,000 this year according to the United Nations – who have made the perilous sea voyage in what they sea as a last-ditch attempt for a better life.
In the Middle East and North Africa the wars of the once named “Arab Spring” have seen the highest number of forcibly displaced persons since the end of the second world war.
In Syria as many as 200,000 people have been killed. With no end in sight for the conflict, many are selling their last possessions to raise the money they need to be smuggled to Europe.
In response, the smuggling business has burgeoned. In Istanbul, Syrian refugee families can spend weeks or months “shopping” for the best smuggler. Dozens of competing illegal networks each offer different routes for different prices.
Choosing the right smuggler can be a life or death decision. Whilst some charge less, the vessels they load their clients on are often so overcrowded and dilapidated they fall apart in the sea, drowning all the passengers.
The details given by Abu Ali and other smugglers to this newspaper reveal the extent to which the illegal smuggling network is entrenched within the very security forces that are intended to manage countries’ borders.
Putting his phone on silent mode so as not to be interrupted by constant calls, Abu Ali detailed how he works with fellow smugglers across Europe.
After loading his clients on boats at seaports in Turkey he contacted smugglers in their destination countries, who would then begin paying bribes required to get the refugees through customs.
Up to 2000 Syrians, Iraqis and refugees from other countries have paid Abu Ali to travel from Turkey to Greece by sea and then overland to other countries across Europe in the last year, he said.
“Many people want to go to Austria. I call a smuggler who bribes guards to get them across some of the borders on the journey from Greece. Then he shows them secret routes for getting across to Albania and then to Montenegro. That costs €1,000.”
From there, for a further €1,500, a second groups of smugglers move the refugees from Serbia to Austria. Much of the money for that, he claimed, also goes to border officials.
The second major route out of Turkey is on a long and perilous journey by sea, most often in a shipping container, to Italy.
“In Italy we work directly with the mafia who control the ports,” said Abu Ali. “Sometimes police block a ship because they find refugees on board. But then my boss speaks to his contacts in Italy who orders release the ship and let it sail to port.
“Usually though this does not happen as the police are already paid off by people high up in the smuggling ring. We pay the captain of the ship too. Sometimes, when he sees we have put a lot of refugees on, he demands more money.”
Abu Ali also claimed that, for a much higher price of €22,000, he could take refugees – even people without documents – as far as Canada, “using connections in the government”.
Other smugglers have independently told the Sunday Telegraph that they bribe contacts inside Western embassies to obtain visas for their clients.
The racket is generating an illegal trade that is worth billions and, at the same time, is costing hundreds of lives.
The United National estimates that in this year alone least 4,270 people have been killed whilst attempting such journeys.
“It all comes down to how much you can afford to pay,” said Abu Ali.
Abu Ali is one of the more “high end” smugglers: with he and his family working in the same network for more than 25 years.
“Before the war in Syria I smuggled refugees from the war in Iraq to Jordan. Before that I worked in Egypt and in Libya,” he said.
He said he was uninterested in placing his customers on poorly maintained ships because he doesn’t want to “ruin” his “reputation”.
But even using the relatively safer route offered by Abu Ali and others, of being smuggled in a container on a freight ship, there is the danger of suffocation: smugglers drill small air holes into the metal sides of the containers. But the containers are sometimes stacked together so closely on the shop that the holes became blocked.
At least 14 of Abu Ali’s customers have died this horrible death in the past year he said.
The smuggling networks also help bring people – often foreign jihadists wanting to join extremist groups – into Syria.
Abu Ali said he had helped a Muslim “family from America”, to enter the country.
“In this job we don’t mind who you are, just how much you can pay,” he said.
One day he would like to smuggle his own family abroad, Abu Ali said, with Canada being his first choice. But for now the business is too lucrative.
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