People smugglers

MILAN (AP) – The Italian coast guard rescued 22 people and recovered nine bodies after a smugglers´ boat capsized in a storm about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the island of Lampedusa, authorities said Thursday. Survivors indicated that the

Greek authorities found 84 boat migrants and arrested four individuals, accusing them of being the traffickers that transported them.

Thirteen unaccompanied minors are among over 300 Indian passengers on a flight to Nicaragua held in France over suspected human trafficking.

A report highlights the danger migrants are put in by callous people smugglers, who grow rich on human suffering. 

Serbian police said Friday they made seven arrests on suspicion of smuggling people into Hungary as part of a days-long crackdown.

A fishing boat carrying dozens of migrants became grounded, killing five people and leaving about 20 missing off the coast of Sicily.

Three people were killed and one more injured during a raging hours-long battle between migrant smuggling gangs at the Serbia-Hungary border.

More than 2,500 illegal boat migrants have drowned to death or have gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea this year, the U.N. reported.

Police in Germany found more than 100 Syrian citizens inside apartments and other buildings that were searched Tuesday.

Italian PM Giorgia Meloni vowed “extraordinary measures” to deal with the migrant crisis, including calling anew for a naval blockade.

Humanitarian concern on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa after more than 5,000 people arrived in one day on smugglers boats.

Italy has seen the number of illegal boat migrants landing on its shores double over last year, reaching nearly 90,000 in just seven months.

Greek authorities said Sunday they had safely rescued 48 migrants from a rudderless inflatable boat off the island of Lesbos.

Forty-one migrants including three children are feared dead after being shipwrecked last week in the Mediterranean, UN agencies said.

Dozens of migrants were dramatically rescued by Italy as they foundered in the sea or clung to a rocky reef Sunday.

German police have lost track of a suspected trafficking “kingpin” after he exploited an EU human rights loophole to be freed from prison.

Gangs do battle with police and each other, leaving at least one dead and locals sleeping on the floor so not to catch a stray bullet in bed.

Another human trafficker has been jailed in the UK over the shocking 2019 deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a truck. 

Czech police said Tuesday that they have broken up an international ring suspected of smuggling migrants from Turkey to western Europe.

The alleged ringleaders of an Albanian people smuggling gang bringing illegal migrants to the UK in small boats have been arrested.

The Greek coast guard said that a ship that went down off the country’s south coast left more than 500 migrants presumed drowned.

The death toll from a migrant boat sinking off the Greek resort island of Mykonos has tripled to nine after another six bodies were found.

Despite thousands of boats bringing illegal migrants to Britain, the government only managed to charge 82 people smugglers last year.

Tunisia’s coast guard says it recovered around 210 bodies of migrants under two weeks that have washed up on the African country’s coast.

At least two migrants have died and about 20 others are missing after their boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea between Tunisia and Italy.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has declared war on people smugglers pushing illegal migration, promising prison terms of up to 30 years.

An Italian intelligence report released this week says migrant “taxi” ship NGOs help people-smugglers and cause more deaths at sea.

Italian prosecutors have revealed that smugglers charged as much as 8,000 euros each for a voyage that led to the deaths of dozens of people.

NICOSIA, Cyprus – A Cyprus court on Saturday ordered the detention for six days of a Syrian man suspected of illegally bringing 21 Syrian migrants to the east Mediterranean island nation aboard a boat.

A British couple was handed prison sentences for joining a migrant smuggling ring and bringing illegals to the UK hidden in couches.

Police found 43 migrants hidden in a van just days after authorities found the bodies of 18 migrants concealed in a lumber truck.

73 people are missing and presumed dead after people smugglers put them on an inflatable boat that sank off the coast of Libya. 

Court sentenced six members of a people smuggling network operating in the English Channel to between two and five years in prison.

Gangs smuggling boat migrants across the English Channel may be linked to a Taliban military formation and pose a serious national security risk, according to Nigel Farage. 

The bodies of eight migrants and 42 survivors have been recovered in the central Mediterranean off the island of Lampedusa, ANSA reported.

Deaths of migrants along the Eastern Mediterranean route to Greece surged in 2022 according to the United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR.