Italian authorities have arrested two Bangladeshi people smugglers accused of torturing migrants in Libya in order to get money from their victims.
The two alleged smugglers, aged 24 and 32, were arrested on Tuesday, October 11 after arrest warrants had been created by an investigations judge on charges of abduction of migrants in order to extort them and of aiding in people smuggling.
One of the suspects was arrested in the town of Gorizia in northern Italy, while the other was arrested in Agrigento in Sicily, the European Union-funded website InfoMigrants reports.
The pair are said to have entered Italy at the end of September illegally by landing on the island of Lampedusa, which has been a focal point for illegal immigrant arrivals this year and has seen its reception centre repeatedly overwhelmed due to the influx of new migrants.
According to investigators, the pair arrived on the island on different boats than the migrants they allegedly kidnapped and tortured in a detention facility in Libya.
The pair were identified by migrants who were interviewed by police in Agrigento and explained that they had been tortured because they had not fully paid the 10,000 or so euros for the trip from Bangladesh to Italy. Those who had paid in full were allegedly treated far better.
The case is just the latest to exposé the brutality of people smugglers whose business of trafficking migrants illegally to Europe is enabled by the continent’s porous borders.
In 2020, an Italian court sentenced three men, 27-year-old Guinean Mohammed Conde, 26-year-old Egyptian Hameda Ahmed, and 24-year-old Egyptian Mahmoud Ashuia, to 20 years in prison each after the trio were found guilty of offences from people smuggling to torturing migrants.
Testimony heard in the court revealed the man had also tortured migrants in a prison in Libya as well as tortured and beaten migrants aboard boats sailing across the Mediterranean to Europe.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.