German authorities have lost track of a suspected trafficking “kingpin”, who is alleged to have orchestrated some 10,000 illegals enter the UK before an EU human rights loophole was exploited to free him from prison and disappear from view.
A 41-year-old alleged human trafficker, known only as Dirk P as per court conditions, has absconded and disappeared in Germany after his lawyers successfully freed him, arguing that a planned extradition to Belgium would put him danger of having his human rights infringed upon because prisons in the country are overcrowded and that he is supposedly “persecuted person”.
“We have no longer any legal way of monitoring his whereabouts… He is at large now,” a spokesman for the local attorney general’s office told the Daily Mail this week.
The suspected trafficking mastermind was initially arrested in March, but will now likely be tried in absentia in the trial against 21 suspected people smugglers, some of whom are based in Britain and who are accused of “criminal involvement” in aiding illegals across the English Channel.
The joint operation from Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and its counterparts in Europe that discovered Dirk P claimed that his network was responsible for trafficking 10,000 illegals into the UK over a period of 18 months, at a cost of up to 5,000 euros per migrant. It is believed that the people smuggling gang accounted for a fourth of all such crossings up to the point of the bust.
During the raid on Dirk P’s farm, officers discovered a supply of dozens of inflatable dinghies — the craft of choice for Channel people smugglers — as well as hundreds of lifejackets, outboard boat engines, three “live” handguns, and thousands of euros in cash. The boats, which are believed to have been manufactured in China, are suspected to have been purchased online and sent to Germany from Turkey.
Before absconding, Dirk P, a farmer and a maritime equipment salesman, professed his innocence. However, authorities have described him as being a “key figure in this smugglers’ network of mainly Iraqi Kurds.” Police also described him as being one of “the most important logisticians” in the Channel migrant crisis.
It comes as approximately 15,000 illegals have crossed the English Channel since the start of the year, as a further 262 migrants made the journey from the beaches of France on Friday. This is around 12 per cent down from last year at this point, however, despite Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s earlier proclamations of success in deterring the trade, it is still up from previous years.
Those who are smuggled by human trafficking networks are not only put at risk of drowning during the often perilous journey across the world’s busiest waterway but many are also often sold into effective modern slavery, with many migrants signing pacts to work in the black market in Britain to pay off the debt to the smugglers. Others, including children, have been sold by traffickers into sex slavery.