Suspected high-ranking members of a Channel migrant smuggling gang have been arrested during raids in France and Germany.
Investigators believe the “sophisticated” Iraqi organised crime network bought inflatable dinghies in Turkey and stored them in German warehouses, before transporting them to the French coast.
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The National Crime Agency said 13 people were arrested after 500 officers stormed into safehouses in the North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden Wurttemberg regions of Germany on Wednesday.
A number of those detained in Germany on December 4 are suspected of being senior members of the OCG, and now face extradition to France.
Equipment used in migrant smuggling seized during raids (Image: Eurojust)
Some 21 boats, 24 engines, life jackets, pumps and cash were also seized.
The NCA provided crucial intelligence on the gang’s routes, it is understood.
NCA International Regional Manager Tom Outhwaite said: “The operation has demonstrated the benefits of working internationally to target these OCGs, and we are grateful to our French and German partners for what they have done.
“We believe the action undertaken here will have significantly degraded a people smuggling network impacting the UK, which has been directly responsible for putting lives at risk in boats on the Channel.
“Targeting, disrupting and dismantling these gangs remains a priority for the NCA, and we are devoting more resource to doing that than ever before.
“That includes additional officers working overseas in locations where criminal networks are active to assist on operations like this.”
Germany is a key transit country for smugglers bringing dinghies and engines to the French coast, with networks known to use warehouses for their equipment.
Thousands of migrants also pass through the country, with organised crime gangs using safehouses near Bonn, Cologne, Frankfurt, Essen, Dusseldorf, Bochum and Dortmund.
The criminals have admitted sometimes offering ‘bait’ to German police.
This sees the gangsters allow the authorities to seize boats and equipment – but not enough to disrupt their businesses.
Charities working in France have identified vehicles with Belgian, German and Dutch number plates at a notorious migrant camp near Dunkirk.
The smugglers also bragged to an undercover BBC reporter that they could get boats and equipment to Northern France within four hours, which means they are comfortable using the motorway networks to cross the border.
The Daily Express has revealed how Britain wants to build “Al Capone” cases against migrant smugglers.
The National Crime Agency is examining other areas of their businesses to hunt out weaknesses, it is understood.
Some of the organised crime networks invest their profits from smuggling in drugs and gun trafficking in Europe, it is believed.
And the NCA is probing whether these higher risk activities could provide a crucial opening to snare the gangs and prevent more deaths in the Channel.
It comes amid growing frustration in the Home Office over German laws which state it is not illegal to facilitate people smuggling to a third country outside the EU.
The Daily Express understands there are particular frustrations over a law which states it is not illegal to store huge dinghies in warehouses across western Germany.
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Keir Starmer is under pressure to end the Channel migrant crisis (Image: Getty)
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Because Government officials believe it is unlikely they will be able to convince Berlin to rewrite their laws, law enforcement chiefs believe widening their investigations into the smuggling gangs could be more effective in disrupting them.
An insider said: “If these people were not trafficking people, they would be trafficking drugs or weapons.
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“They can store the boats in Germany because it is not illegal to store the boats. But if they were being used for human trafficking, and they were on the water, they could be seized.”
Notorious gangster Al Capone ruled a crime empire, linked to murders, drug trafficking, prostitution, robbery, bootlegging, ‘protection rackets’ and gambling, in Chicago during the 1920s.
But he was jailed for seven years for tax evasion.