It’s a trial that has a special resonance, ten days after shipwreck which left 27 dead in Calais. Three smugglers were sentenced on Monday, December 7 to prison terms ranging from 4 to 1 years by the court of Boulogne-sur-Mer. A Syrian and two Iraqi Kurds, found guilty of participating in a network to aid the passage of exiles to the United Kingdom by sea this summer. These men are not the thinking heads, but their traffic was very intense, and very lucrative, since these 500 passages were carried out in just two months, between the end of June and the beginning of August, generating a turnover of more than a million euros.
Over 150 names in a notebook
The three men were arrested while driving around Calais. In the car the police find buoys, and a person ready to cross the Channel. The three men are tried, two of them are condemned for these facts. But the investigation continues and the police find many videos on their phones.
On some, migrants who arrived in England thank one of the condemned. On a different, posted on the TikTok social network, we see another on a boat, praising the beauty of the view against a musical background, spoke of his customers who managed to pass. “Have you ever seen a smuggler film himself?“, defends the man.”It looks like promotion, when we see you it looks like it’s easy and pleasant“, replies the president.
In the car, the police also find a notebook. It contains more than 150 names. Some are marked “baby“, for” baby “. In front of each name, there is a sum: 174,000 euros in total.
“Ferryman, that doesn’t mean anything anymore!”
One question was at the heart of the trial: from when are you a smuggler? For the deputy prosecutor, being a smuggler is like being member of a large company. This is the comparison she uses during her indictment. There are the leaders, at the top, and then those like the three convicts, who are intermediaries, handlers. As in a business, there are large sums of money circulating: the police estimate the network’s total turnover at 1.3 million euros. And even advertising thanks to videos shared in particular on Tik-Tok.
“But the word ferryman doesn’t mean anything anymore“, defends one of the lawyers. For him, we can’t put thinking heads and those little hands on the same level, who do the accounts, repair boat engines, take taxis. And who for some participate in the network to be able to pay their own ticket to the English coast.
Several times during the hearing, the defendants burst into tears, deny, say they haven’t organized anything. But the president takes one of them to task: “Whatever the reasons, you put people on boats that you wouldn’t have been on, she said to him. This is what it is to be a smuggler.”