PALERMO -- Following a series of investigations into the work of a transnational criminal network which has been trafficking migrants, 38 arrests have been made across Italy it was revealed on Monday by the anti-mafia investigators in Palermo. The central headquarters of the organisation has allegedly been located in a perfume shop in Rome, close to the Termini railway station. Here, 520,000 euros and 25,000 dollars of cash were confiscated, in addition to a book with names of the migrants targeted.

 Those investigated have been accused of conspiring together to facilitate illegal immigration through unlawful financial activity, as well as committing crimes concerning the international trafficking of drugs, both characterised by an underlying sense of criminal partnership and collaboration. One source has revealed that migrants without money were reportedly killed so that their vital organs could be sold on the black market.

 Investigations, which were carried out by teams from both Palermo and Agrigento and by the Police Central Operations service, have uncovered the exchange of large amounts of money which allegedly came from the trafficking of the migrants concerned.  These exchanges of funds are thought to have been made through the ‘hawala’ channel, which implies the transfer of funds without any physical movement of the money itself.

 The traffickers have used several different ways of getting the migrants to national territory, not only by sea but also with by means of false family reunions. It has also been revealed that the main suspects concerned are not only responsible for the trafficking of immigrants, but have in addition been managing a flourishing drug trafficking business on an international level, exporting what have been classified by Italian legislation as ‘hard drugs’ from Ethiopia. 

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