Twenty-six people were arrested and eleven million euros in assets (property, luxury cars, jewelry, gold, machines, etc.) were seized in the framework of an extensive investigation into a criminal organization that trafficked immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and laundered money, reports the Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from the border police (PAF) in Roissy, on Thursday, November 28.
These interconnected networks of smugglers, who charge between 15,000 and 26,000 euros per head for their services, are suspected of having illegally smuggled several thousand people from India, Sri Lanka and Nepal into France since September 2021. “Smugglers facilitated migrants’ travel to the European Union via Dubai or African states, while providing them with illegally obtained tourist, work or medical visas.”Julien Gentile, director of the PAF Roissy, explains to AFP.
From March to November 2024, twenty-six men were arrested in France: fifteen were placed in preventive detention, seven under judicial supervision and another four, recently arrested, were presented on Thursday night before the investigating judge.
Millions of euros in illegal profits
They are accused of belonging to different levels of the criminal organization, from smugglers to money launderers and secret financial brokers. “This is the exceptional nature of this case”welcomes Mr. Gentile.
These networks generated several million euros in illegal profits, authorities estimated. To reinject these sums into the legal circuit, laundering networks have been structured around construction companies, gold trafficking and the hawala system, that is, informal money transfers by intermediaries, particularly widespread in the Indian subcontinent.
The head of the network remains, located in Dubai and whose extradition request has not yet had a favorable result, according to the PAF. The investigation was carried out by the Office to Combat Illicit Trafficking of Migrants (Oltim) at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport.
