Migrant smuggling ring: network operating between Algeria, Sardinia and Marseille dismantled

They were allegedly using powerful rubber dinghies to transport irregular migrants along a route linking Algeria, Sardinia and France. The Cagliari Anti-Mafia Directorate (DDA) and the State Police have dismantled a transnational organisation, leading to the arrest of eight foreign nationals. This is the outcome of Operation Phantom, carried out by the Central Operations Service of the State Police’s Central Anti-Crime Directorate and the Cagliari Mobile Squad, with the support of SISCO, under the direction of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate.

The investigation takes its name from the powerful, high-performance rubber dinghies, known as ‘Phantom’, which the organisation was allegedly to have used to transport both irregular migrants and large quantities of drugs across the Mediterranean. According to evidence gathered during the investigation launched in February, the organisation was allegedly headed by an Algerian asylum seeker who had recently settled in the Cagliari area. ‘The man,’ the State Police explain in a statement, ‘is alleged to have managed the recruitment of migrants and people-smugglers in Algeria, the collection of the money required for the crossing, the organisation of clandestine journeys to the coast of Sardinia using dangerous vessels, and the alleged bribery of local officials to facilitate the departures.”

The investigations are said to have made it possible to piece together ‘a well-established network linking El Kala in Algeria, Cagliari and Marseille, along which the organisation’s main operational routes were established’. Specifically, migrants were recruited in Algeria, departures were organised and the logistics for the crossings were arranged. In Sardinia, there was a unit responsible for reception, the preparation of forged documents and operational support for the organisation’s members. “In the Marseille area – the police further report – one of the organisation’s main financiers was operating, believed to be the point of contact for securing financial resources and high-performance vessels, in particular fast rubber dinghies intended both for the illegal transport of migrants and for planned international drug trafficking”.

The investigations have made it possible to piece together ‘at least five illegal crossings that set off from the Algerian city of El Kala and were bound for the southern coast of Sardinia, identifying the alleged people-smugglers involved’.

For the investigators, however, the outlook was one of expansion. ‘The organisation had in fact acquired powerful rubber dinghies fitted with high-powered engines and was planning to launch a new and more lucrative human trafficking route: setting off from the Sardinian coast, reaching the Tunisian island of La Galite – as the investigators further explain – taking on board groups of migrants and returning them swiftly to Sardinia via extremely fast crossings. An operational model that would have made it possible to increase the number of journeys and, consequently, the organisation’s profits, given that each migrant would have paid the criminal organisations an estimated sum of around 2,500 euros to reach Italia territory.”