The Polish national prosecutor’s office has dismantled an international human trafficking network operating across the Poland-Belarus border.
The network is also suspected of financing terrorism.
The investigation, led by the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), was conducted in close cooperation with German and Dutch police. Two alleged ringleaders, Ahmad R., known as Abu Noh, living in Germany, and Mohammed A, also called Abu Josef, have been identified. Ahmad R. was arrested on 23 April, the Polish national prosecutor’s office reported.
So far, 36 persons in Poland, Ukraine, Iraq and Belarus have been indicted in connection with the investigation, according to the prosecutor’s office.
The network focused on organising the illegal migration of Iraqis, Syrians, and Palestinians towards Germany via the Polish-Belarusian border, it explained.
The two alleged network leaders are also reported to have been involved in trafficking Yemeni, Syrian and Iranian migrants via the Balkans.
During the investigation of cryptocurrency transfers totalling $581 million on accounts controlled by the network, at least $30 million was directed towards accounts identified as belonging to the Lebanese group Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. An additional $13 million went to a website targeted by US sanctions, the Polish prosecutor’s office revealed.
Since Summer 2021, thousands of migrants and refugees, primarily from the Middle East, have attempted to cross the border between Belarus and Poland, some of them successfully.
Warsaw and Western nations accuse the Minsk regime and its Russian ally of orchestrating this influx as a “hybrid” attack aimed at destabilising the region and the European Union. This claim has been denied by the regime of Alexander Lukashenko.
