(AFP) German police carried out sweeping pre-dawn raids Wednesday targeting an alleged Iraqi-Kurdish criminal network accused of smuggling migrants by boat from France to Britain.
More than 500 officers searched locations in multiple western German cities in an operation coordinated with Europol and French security services, police said.
The network is accused of the “smuggling of irregular migrants from the Middle East and East Africa to France and the UK using low-quality inflatable boats,” German police said in a statement.
Police searched residential properties and storage facilities on the basis of search and arrest warrants issued by a French court in Lille, the police said.
