‘Merchant of Death’ trial intensifies crackdown on Channel smugglers

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Reuters An overloaded ship in the English ChannelReuters

People smugglers make huge profits from illegally crossing the English Channel

The French judge glanced sternly through his glasses at the vast underground courtroom, looking at the notorious figure sitting in a glass cage.

“There will be no more misconduct. No more threats. Do you understand that?” asked Arabelle Bouts, chief judge in a Europe-wide people-smuggling trial so large that it As a result 67 tons of files were generated.

“Yes,” Mirkhan Rasoul, 26, replied calmly.

Rassoul, who had previously been convicted of smuggling and received a separate eight-year sentence for attempted murder, interrupted proceedings days ago by threatening two interpreters in court. He was now flanked by two armed police officers.

Standing next to the judge, lead prosecutor Julie Carros leaned toward the microphone, glanced down at her notes, and began laying out her final arguments in the sprawling case involving a 33-member Kurdish smuggling ring. The majority of migrants who crossed the English Channel in small boats between 2020 and 2022 are responsible.

While Mr Rasoul remained behind a glass screen, about 10 other defendants sat in the open courtroom, surrounded by a further 15 armed police officers, whose handcuffs were removed only when the court was in session.

“This was a tentacle-like case … involving the traders of death,” Ms. Carlos said. She described how the gang overloaded the boats, sometimes with 15 times more people on board than the boats were designed to carry.

Police forces on a French beach, trying to stop migrants from crossing in small boatsGetty Images

Britain and France increase funding to combat illegal crossings of the English Channel

The result, she said, was that the gangs achieved “amazing” profit margins, earning up to €60,000 ($65,000; £50,000) per vessel launched, with around half reaching British waters, giving the gangs an annual profit of Revenues €3.5m ($3.8m; £2.9m).

The gang itself is accused of controlling the majority of all Channel crossings from the French coast, with its network transporting equipment from across Europe until late 2021 and 2022, its members were arrested It was part of what was then the largest international operation against small boat smuggling in France, Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

A total of 17 men and one woman are currently on trial, 12 were earlier found guilty and three will go on trial next year.

As Ms. Carlos laid out the prosecution’s case against each defendant, at least two relatives sitting in the courtroom expressed frustration as they called for long prison sentences. The trial is expected to end in early November.

“We ask for a 15-year prison sentence, a fine of 200,000 euros and a permanent ban on entering French territory,” Ms. Carlos said of Mirhan Rassoul, who is accused of murdering a man in a central French institution. Control of the gang continues in prison.

“We found three cell phones in his cell,” she said, going on to describe a recording in which Mr. Rassoul boasted that the prison in Tours was “almost like a hotel… They searched the cells, but from My phone was not found. The police were very friendly”.

Pascal Maconville

Chief prosecutor Pascal Maconville said the longer sentences were intended to increase pressure on smugglers

But will this massive trial, and the prospect of harsh sentences, have a serious deterrent effect on the smuggling industry?

Prosecutors directly involved in the trial declined to speak to the BBC, but Pascal Marconville, chief prosecutor at France’s northern regional appeals court, said the long sentences were part of a wider strategy to raise the cost of smuggling. customer.

“The actions taken by the French police, with the support of the investigating judge, were not only designed to frustrate their operations but also to make such operations so expensive that they would lose their appeals,” Mr Maconville told us.

He described how the gangs have evolved in recent years from informal groups supporting their fellow countrymen to “networks organized much like drug cartels.”

He went on to outline a fragmented network of different “departments” focused on different parts of the smuggling industry.

“It’s like chess, they have [the advantage] on the blackboard. So they are always one step ahead of us. We must adapt and understand how to combat these networks. We have been fighting the ringleaders because when they are arrested and jailed, they still manage to operate their networks from the inside,” he said.

Despite the difficulties for law enforcement officials working in different countries, such as different laws on bail and evidentiary standards, Mr Maconville praised the cooperation between French and British officials, saying the UK was “very willing to come up with solutions to improve cooperation”.

The Germans, on the other hand, “we always thought they were very efficient people, but they don’t make things easier” [for us]”, he pointed out.

But a defense attorney involved in the case downplayed the broader impact of the small boat crisis.

“The sentences are getting harsher now. That’s clear. I think they’re going to continue to toughen them up. Unfortunately… I’m pessimistic because I don’t think it’s going to stop… because in these [smuggling] “People in this circle only think about money,” Kamal Abbas said.

Mr Abbas, who is defending a man accused of acting as a decoy driver for a smuggling convoy, explained how the three defendants in the trial were released on bail last year after two years in detention and were arrested in Belgium shortly after Arrested.

“Nothing can stop them… They see incarceration as just another obstacle in the road,” he said.

More than a decade after his involvement in the smuggling trial, Mr. Abbas has another concern about its impact.

“[The real leaders] Always an escape. If their leader is Iraqi, he is in Iraq. If he were Iranian, he would be in Iran. But I’m sure the connection is usually in England. If the British authorities want to stop this phenomenon, they should look harder at certain areas of London,” Mr Abbas said.

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