Italian police have dismantled an illegal immigration network that organized crossings to transport hundreds of migrants to Sardinia, security sources indicated, specifying that eight Algerian nationals were arrested.
The network, led by an Algerian asylum seeker settled in the Cagliari region (southern Sardinia), operated between Algeria, France, and Italy, stated the Italian police, as quoted by local media.
The eight individuals, aged 25 to 39, including three smugglers and the alleged leader of the criminal organization, have all been placed in pre-trial detention.
According to the police, the members of this network transported at least 60 people, almost all of them Algerian, to the Italian island aboard high-performance inflatable boats during five crossings.
The investigation, which began in February and was conducted jointly by the police and the Cagliari anti-mafia division, made it possible to “reconstruct at least five clandestine crossings departing from the Algerian city of El Kala and heading towards the southern coasts of Sardinia,” a police statement pointed out.
The network planned to open a “new, more profitable human trafficking route” between the Tunisian island of La Galite and the Sardinian coasts, the same source added.
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