People smuggling

Smuggling people is as lucrative as illegal drugs

People smuggling across Europe has expanded so dramatically that it is now comparable in profit and sophistication to the illegal drugs market, Europol said yesterday.

The continent’s law enforcement agency said in a report that gangs bringing in migrants from more than 120 countries were using a range of sea and land routes to fuel a billion-pound industry. More than a million migrants entered the EU through the eastern and central Mediterranean routes in 2015 and more than 510,000 last year.

Europol has previously warned that fighters from Islamic State have posed as refugees or migrants in order to get into Europe to carry out terrorist attacks.