Turkey-Italy Migrant Trafficking Gang Busted

Rome: 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 favoring clandestine immigration.

According to Ansa News Agency, 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.