CATANIA - Local police stopped and arrested 25 people on charges of criminal conspiracy aimed at aiding and abetting illegal immigration as the country’s migrant crisis worsens. 

 The arrested, mostly Guineans and Ivorians, were traced to several Italian locations and were allegedly the members of a foreign organisation which manages the cross-border journeys of migrants coming from the sub-Saharan area and intending to cross Italy to enter other EU countries. 

 The investigation, conducted by the Catania mobile squad, was opened following statements from a minor who, taken from her community, was put on a bus heading north, where the traffickers were waiting for her. 

 “The traffickers contacted the migrants directly in Africa and took them, for a payment of more than a thousand euros, to the European country of their choice,” said Francesco Messina, the director of local police.

 “Serious crimes have been committed in several countries and characterised by transnationality.”

 These arrests come at the same time as the emergency situation in Lampedusa following the two shipwrecks off of the Tunisian coast, in which more than 800 people arrived on the island. 

 The bodies of two women, who are believed to be victims of Monday’s shipwreck, were recovered in Italian SAR waters by the Coast Guard patrol boat Cp268. 

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