Italian police on Tuesday busted a
migrant trafficking gang operating between Turkey and Italy.
Some 15 people were arrested in the provinces of Cosenza,
Catania and Catanzaro, as well as in Albania, Germany, Oman and
Turkey on charges of conspiracy to traffic migrants and
favouring clandestine immigration.
The police operation, codenamed El Rais, focused on 18 migrant
trafficking operations between 2021 and 2023 in which several
thousand migrants arrived on Calabrian and Sicilian coasts,
police told a press conference in Palermo.
The suspected leader of the gang, Egyptian Assad Ali Gomaa
Khodit, aka Abu Sufyen, was arrested in Turkey.
He is believed to be one of the major players in the trafficking
of migrants from Asia Minor to Europe, police said.
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