Dutch police break up people smuggling gang from Syria

DutchNews, September 18, 2015

Two Syrian nationals have been arrested in the Netherlands and charged with smuggling ‘hundreds’ of people into the country via Italy, Greece, Austria and Hungary. 

The main suspect is a 35-year-old man based in Eindhoven. His 26-year-old nephew was also picked up, as was an unidentified woman. She is suspected of handling the money and was released on Sunday pending further investigation, the public prosecution department said in a statement. 

A 27-year-old man has also been arrested in Budapest in connection with the case. 

The public prosecutor said the smuggling operation began in Turkey where people paid €7,000 to be taken to Greece or Italy. The second leg of their journey, a car trip from Italy, cost a further €700. Some of the cash had to be paid before leaving Turkey, the rest on arrival. 

The investigation into the gang began a year ago and involved the authorities in Hungary, Germany, Austria and Hungary as well as Europol. 

The 35-year-old man is a Syrian with refugee status. He is said to have organised the transport, cars and drivers. According to the Nos, he was making up to €120,000 a year, but demand in recent months had driven his earnings to €20,000 a week.

EU approves military mission to tackle migrant smugglers: sources

Yahoo – AFP, Alix Rijckaert, 19 June 2015

EU member states approved plans on Friday to launch as early as next week

 the first phase of a military operation against people smugglers in the Mediterranean,

sources said (AFP Photo/Jason Florio)

Brussels (AFP) - EU member states approved plans Friday to launch as early as next week the first phase of a military operation against people smugglers in the Mediterranean, sources said.

"Everything is now in place so that EU foreign ministers meeting Monday can approve the launch of the mission," one EU diplomat told AFP.

Other sources said member states have committed to supply enough ships and aircraft to allow the first, intelligence-gathering, phase of the operation to go ahead.

Stung into action by the loss of an estimated 800 migrants when their rickety boat sank off southern Italy, EU leaders agreed at an emergency summit in April to formulate a comprehensive plan to tackle the problem at source.

As well as boosting search and rescue efforts, they called on EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini to draw up military options against the ruthless traffickers exploiting the waves of humanity seeking to get to Europe across the Mediterranean.

The first phase of intelligence gathering is meant to be followed by active intervention to board and disable smuggler vessels and arrest the traffickers.

A third phase would extend these actions into Libyan territorial waters and possibly inside the country itself.

While some EU states such as Britain and France favour moving promptly to Phase 2 and 3, others have serious reservations about direct involvement in a chaotic Libya where rival factions are fighting for control and the internationally-recognised government has fled Tripoli to take up residence in Benghazi.

To meet these reservations, the EU April summit agreed that Phase 2 and 3 would only go ahead if the bloc obtained Libyan consent -- a difficult prospect -- and a UN Security Council resolution.

Russia, one of the five UNSC permanent members, and others "want a clear Libyan consent; we are still working on it," said a senior EU official who asked not to be named.

"We are rather optimistic that in the end there will be a UNSC resolution to go on with the other phases; there is no absolute certitude but there is a very good prospect," the official said.

Newly arrived migrants huddle together as they try to protect themselves from

 the rain while waiting to be registered in Mytilene, Greece, on June 19, 2015

(AFP Photo/Louisa Gouliamaki)

Opposition to sharing burden

Some 100,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean so far this year, most of them landing in Italy, Greece and Malta which all want their EU peers to share more of the burden.

The European Commission has proposed that 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean asylum-seekers who have arrived in Europe should be redistributed and that 20,000 Syrians living in camps outside Europe should be resettled across the 28-nation bloc.

Many member states are prepared to contribute to the humanitarian efforts of search and rescue but are less forthcoming when it comes to taking in more migrants or backing the military option.

Migration is a hugely sensitive issue and far-right and eurosceptic parties have capitalised on public concerns about a massive influx of refugees to make considerable inroads at the expense of established parties.

Earlier this week, EU ministers could not reach agreement on the Commission proposals.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Wednesday that member states remained "far from consensus" on how to distribute refugees between them.

"These are difficult discussions we're having at the moment and all my conversations with European colleagues show that we remain far from consensus and that a lot persuasion will still be necessary," he said.

"In our view, the best way is mandatory quotas for the European member states."

Germany last year took in 200,000 asylum seekers and expects as many as 450,000 this year.

Greece’s $8.3b Tax Plan Said to Be Aimed at Criminals, Oligarchs

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Feb 23, 2015

A protester holds a Greek flag during a rally in support to the Greek
Government’s negotiations in the Eurogroup meeting, outside the Greek
Parliament, in Athens, Greece, on Feb. 20, 2015. (EPA Photo/Yannis Kolesidis)

Berlin. Greece has drawn up a 7.3 billion-euro ($8.3 billion) tax hit list aimed at the country’s oligarchs and lucrative smuggling industry, a German newspaper said, as part of reform proposals due to its creditors on Monday.

European finance ministers on Friday gave Athens just over three days to draw up a list acceptable to its international creditors in exchange for a four-month extension of its debt bailout.

Popular German tabloid Bild reported that the Greek government hopes to garner 2.5 billion euros in tax receipts from the fortunes of powerful Greek tycoons, citing sources close to the hard-left government.

A similar amount would be drawn from back taxes owed to the state by individuals and businesses, Bild said.

The report said an additional crackdown on illegal smuggling of petrol and cigarettes would yield another 2.3 billion euros for the government coffers.

Greece’s hard-left Syriza government is walking a tightrope between its commitments to European creditors and its electoral pledges to end austerity in a country struggling to recover from severe economic crisis.

Two previous rounds of talks ended in acrimony with Greece accusing Germany and other hardline EU member states of sabotaging a deal.

To win Friday’s hard-fought deal, Athens pledged to refrain from one-sided measures that could compromise its fiscal targets and had to abandon plans to use some 11 billion euros in leftover European bank support funds to help restart the Greek economy.

“Europe has some breathing space, nothing more, and certainly not a resolution. Now it’s up to Athens,” German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Bild.

“The fundamentals — namely assistance in exchange for reform — must remain the same.”

On Tuesday, Greece’s creditors will decide whether to proceed with Friday’s agreement after considering the proposals, with the chance that the compromise could be scrapped if they are not satisfied.

If Athens sticks to its commitments, it stands to receive up to 7.2 billion euros in funds still left in its 240 billion euro bailout from the EU and the International Monetary Fund.

Italy arrests 'ndrangheta mafia suspects

Italian police have launched a major sweep for 163 suspected members of the 'ndrangheta mafia. Arrests were made in Calabria, its southern homeland, as well as Italy's northern region of Emilia-Romagna.

Deutsche Welle, 28 Jan 2015

Italy's national anti-mafia prosecutor, Franco Roberti, described Wednesday's arrests as "historic" for the juristic battle against 'ndrangheta and its expanded operations.

More than 40 arrests were made in southern Calabria, but the bulk of them, 117, took place in towns and cities across northern Italy, most in the region of Emilia Romagna.

In recent years the 'ndrangheta has taken control of Europe's cocaine trade, overtaking the Sicilian and Neapolitan mafias, and has made inroads into Latin America and the United States.

Roberti described the group as a "deeply implanted and very dangerous criminal organization."

"It is an impressive and decisive step against the mafia in the north," he said.

Arrests made by thousands of police

Thousands of police were involved in the arrest operation codenamed "Aemilia" on Wednesday, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.

Bologna's chief prosecutor, Roberto Alfonso, said at a press conference that those arrested in the north included six alleged bosses of a semi-autonomous clan.

The suspects faced charges of extortion, usury, participation in mafia organizations and illegal possession of weapons.

Last week, Italian police made 31 arrests in connection with an alleged plot by an offshoot of the 'ndrangheta' to take control of the cocaine trade.

Links with Colombia and Morocco

The bosses of a 'ndrangheta offshoot were reported to have lived in Rome for years, and to have established links with cocaine producers in Colombia and smuggling operators in Morocco.

In the course of last week's Rome raids, police seized some 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds) of cocaine, hashish and a stash of firearms.

Police said those arrests stemmed from inquiries into the 2013 murder of Roman mobster Vincenzo Femia and secret video recordings of induction ceremonies.

The name 'ndrangheta comes from Greek for courage or loyalty.

ipj/sms (dpa, AFP)

Related Article:

Italy captures mafia initiation rites on film, 40 arrests

Traffickers grossed over $1.0 mn on single 'ghost ship': IOM

Yahoo – AFP, January 3, 2015

Traffickers grossed over $1.0 mn on single ghost ship : IOM

Geneva (AFP) - People smugglers likely raked in more than $1.0 million from the hundreds of desperate migrants crammed into just one of the "ghost ships" abandoned off the coast of Italy this week, the International Organization for Migration said Friday.

"Our reports are of payments of $1,000 to 2,000 per person leaving Syria and attempting to sail from Turkey," IOM spokesman Joel Millman told AFP.

That means that traffickers likely took well above $1.0 million on each of the large, crewless ships crowded with migrants intercepted off Italy in recent days, he said.

That is "enough revenue to pay for a disposable craft, crew, vessels to evacuate the crew and, presumably, make any bribe payments that might have been useful in furthering the scheme," Millman added.

Italian sailors on Friday managed to take control of a crewless merchant ship drifting in rough seas with 450 migrants on board.

That was the second in two days after the Moldovan-registered Blue Sky M ship was abandoned Wednesday by smugglers who set it on autopilot toward Italy's rocky shores with nearly 800 migrants aboard.

More than 170,000 people have been rescued by Italy in the last 14 months and hundreds, possibly thousands, have perished trying to make the crossing.

Millman said the smugglers have recently begun using large cargo ships, rather than smaller boats, as well as turned to moving more "homogenous" groups of passengers, with the Blue Sky M filled almost exclusively with Syrians.

The UN refugee agency also voiced concern Friday at the move towards using large freighters and called on European governments to do more to help Italy respond to flood of migrants landing on its shores.

"We need urgent European concerted action in the Mediterranean Sea, increasing efforts to rescue people at sea and stepping up efforts to provide legal alternatives to dangerous voyages," Vincent Cochetel, head of UNHCR's European bureau, said in a statement.

But with entire villages and towns frantically trying to escape the bloody civil war in Syria, traffickers have found a particularly lucrative niche, Miller said.

The smugglers, Millman warned, could be "getting used to handling a flow of migrants they can predict will run into the thousands of individuals every month."

Related Articles:

Migrant ship Blue Sky M arrives in Italy

Migrant ship Blue Sky M arrives in Italy

Ezadeen 'ghost ship' migrants paid thousands for perilous trip - New

Smugglers abandon migrant ship off Italy in new tactic to force rescue

The Ezadeen off Crotone on Italy's heel. Photograph: AFP/

Getty Images

'Ghost ship' migrants arrive safety in Italy

'Ghost ship' migrants arrive safely in Italy

Turkey bans reporting on parliamentary graft body

A Turkish court has banned reporting on a parliamentary probe into corruption allegations against four ex-ministers in Recep Tayyip Erdogan's previous cabinet. Turkey's opposition says the move protects "thieves."

Deutsche Welle, 26 November 2014

Turkey's Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) told Turkey's media on Wednesday that they were banned from reporting on a parliamentary inquiry into corruption allegations against four former ministers.

Media were also told that they face penalties for violating the prohibition and that the prohibition remained in place until December 27.

In a statement on its website, the RTUK said the ban was necessary because some media reports had "violated the confidentiality of the investigation and the principle of presumption of innocence."

Scores detained last year

Last December, police investigating illegal building permits awarded in Istanbul detained scores of suspects.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister at the time of the arrests and then the winner of Turkey's presidential election in August, has repeatedly claimed that the parliamentary probe was part of an attempted "judicial coup" by the US-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen. The Islamic cleric has denied involvement.

The interior, environment and economy ministers - respectively: Muammer Guler, Erdogan Bayraktar and Zafer Caglayan - stepped down in December 2013 after police rounded up their sons on charges of bribery linked to construction projects and illicit money transfers to neighboring Iran.

As prime minister at the time, Erdogan also removed from his cabinet the-then EU affairs minister Egemen Bagis.

Smuggled gold?

Investigators alleged that Caglayan, for example, took a 210,000-euro Patek Philippe watch to facilitate smuggling of gold to Iran in breach of international sanctions imposed over its controversial nuclear program.

He paid a fine of 250,000 Turkish liras ($110,000/90,000 euros) for "violating the customs and import regulations," the state-run Anatolia news agency reported on Monday. Prosecutors have since dropped the charges against the 53 individuals named, but the commission of inquiry is still set to carry out its probe.

IPI: gag order on #Turkey corruption inquiry likely to harm principles it seeks to advance http://t.co/JN0h8nnEMH @ekizilkaya @KadriGursel
— FreeMediaFreeWorld (@globalfreemedia) November 26, 2014

'Protecting thieves'

Turkish courts frequently block coverage of controversial issues. In July, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said courts issued 150 gag orders in four years.

Officials say the latest commission, however, has failed to summon the suspects and witnesses involved in the corruption investigation to give their testimonies, and accuse members of parliament of seeking the ban for their own personal and professional reasons.

In the summer, the government ordered
the arrests of several investigating officers

The Turkish Journalists' Association has called the ban censorship.

Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu publicly accused parliament speaker Cemil Cicek of asking for the ban, though the head of the commission, dominated by Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, said that he had called for the ban.

"Since when has parliament taken the role of protecting thieves?" Kilicdaroglu said on Wednesday.

Newspapers to defy ban

Some left-leaning media have vowed to defy the ban. The newspaper Cumhuriyet has promised "twice as much news."

Erdogan, now the head of state, has recently found himself in hot water over comments that many took as being anti-feminist.

Turkey's successor regime, still very loyal to its former prime minister, has sought to expand the government's policing powers.

mkg/ (Reuters, AFP)

Irish navy intercepts massive cocaine shipment off coast of Cork

Armed sailors raid yacht containing up to €80m worth of drug, thought to have been smuggled to Ireland from South America

theguardian.com, Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent, Wednesday 24 September 2014

Irish vessel LÉ Niamh with the yacht Makayabella, which was stormed by a naval
 team who found up to 40 bales of cocaine on board. Photograph: Irish Defence Forces/PA

Ireland’s navy confirmed on Wednesday evening that it has intercepted a yacht with a consignment of cocaine worth up to €80m (£63m) on board.

It also said three men believed to be from the UK were arrested on board the vessel in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The yacht, the Makayabella, was stormed by armed Irish sailors 200 miles off Mizen Head, County Cork.

The operation was carried out by a joint task force comprising members of the customs service, the Garda Síochána and navy. The task force works in conjunction with an international headquarters in Lisbon which monitors suspicious shipping coming into European territorial waters.

Two Irish naval vessels – LÉ Niamh and LÉ Roisin – identified the yacht in a surveillance operation in the Atlantic Ocean.

The drugs found are understood to have been smuggled from South America with the yacht sailing from a port in the Caribbean.

Up to 40 bales of cocaine are believed to have been concealed on board the yacht.

It was boarded under cover of darkness by specially trained armed sailors in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The crew are not believed to have put up resistance.

Details of the operation were kept secret until Wednesday evening to protect follow-up investigations in Ireland and abroad.

A spokesperson for the Irish Defence Forces said the operation was based on intelligence from the National Crime Agency in the UK and the French customs service, the DNRED.

The yacht has been taken by tow into the Haulbowline port near Cork City. Armed Irish military police have sealed off the naval base.

Some of the biggest drug seizures in recent times have been off the Irish coast, which is often used as a dropoff point for South American narcotics being smuggled into Europe.

The biggest seizure to date was the discovery of €440m worth of Colombian cocaine which was found in Dunlough Bay, west Cork, seven years ago.

That smuggling operation was compromised after the UK gang behind the plot overloaded a smaller boat to get the drugs to shore and filled a spare fuel tank with diesel instead of petrol. The boat capsized in heavy seas and the majority of the gang were arrested before they could escape.

Over 1,000 arrested in unprecedented swoop: Europol

Yahoo – AFP, Jan Hennop, 24 Sep 2014

A Bulgarian police unit participates in an anti-terror drill in the capital
Sofia on June 15, 2010 (AFP Photo/Dimitar Dilkoff)

The Hague (AFP) - Police have arrested more than 1,000 suspects and rescued at least 30 trafficked children in an unprecedented swoop on organised crime groups across Europe, Europol's chief said on Wednesday.

The continent-wide raids targeted gangs involved in people trafficking, cybercrime, narcotics and illegal gun trafficking, among others.

Carried out by some 20,000 officers between September 15-23, Operation Archimedes "was the single largest coordinated assault an organised crime in Europe," Rob Wainwright told reporters in The Hague.

"The scale of the operation is unprecedented," he added.

Police officers from all 28 European Union members, as well as Australia, Colombia, Norway, the United States, Serbia and Switzerland, carried out 250 operations in some 300 cities, ports and border crossings across Europe.

"We designed an operation specifically to hit criminal infrastructure," Wainwright said at Europol's fortress-like headquarters in The Hague.

"Multiple criminal enterprises, some of them the most serious, have been disrupted right across Europe," he said, adding that the operation targeted "the infrastructure as a whole and not just isolated cases".

Italian police chief Allesandro Pansa said that the Mediterranean and Balkans had been "particular hotspots".

In total, 1,027 arrest were made, including 250 in Spain and 200 in Bulgaria.

Police focused on the growing threat of cybercrime, with criminal networks using the Internet for cross-border crimes, including money laundering.

In one of the raids, 30 Romanian children were saved from child traffickers aiming to use the victims as sex slaves or slave labour, Wainwright said.

In total, 94 trafficking suspects were arrested, with police checking the identity of over 10,000 illegal immigrants.

Law officers seized around 600 kilos (1,320 pounds) of cocaine, 1.3 tonnes of cannabis and 200 kilos of heroin.

They also dismantled a laboratory used for making counterfeit medicine, confiscated 13 luxury cars and seized 1.5 million contraband cigarettes as well as one million euros ($1.3 million) in cash.

Police intercepted over 40 packages of cocaine sent from Colombia to Europe and several couriers carrying the drug.

Searches and arrests were made at four airports and two harbours in Colombia.

"More arrests are expected to follow," said Wainwright, adding that the operation had uncovered leads to be followed up in the "months and years" to come.

It also uncovered new routes used by criminal networks such as human traffickers and identified new criminal trends, he said.

The swoop was coordinated by Europol, whose command centre in The Hague was operating "24/7" Wainwright said.

"The operation sends a very clear message," he said.

"It clearly tells the criminal community... there will be no safe place for them to carry out their activities."

France crushes huge illegal ivory haul

Google – AFP, Mariette Le Roux and Celine Serrat (AFP), 6 February 2014

French Ecology Minister Philippe Martin (L) and French ecologist Nicolas Hulot pose

 with a defense as three tonnes of illegal ivory are displayed on February 6, 2014 in

front of the Eiffel tower in Paris (AFP, Bertrand Guay)

Paris — France fired the latest volley Thursday in the world's uphill battle against African elephant poaching, crushing three tonnes of illegal ivory in a ceremony at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

The contraband, with an estimated street value of one million euros ($1.4 million), was fed into a giant crushing machine and ground into tiny fragments to be carted off and incinerated.

It was the first major crushing ceremony of ivory in Europe since a global ivory ban was imposed in 1989.

"With this destruction today... France is sending an unequivocal message to poachers, traffickers and consumers of illicit wildlife products," said French Environment Minister Philippe Martin who attended the event.

"We are resolved to continue the fight against trafficking, and to remove any temptation to recover the seized ivory" for the contraband market.

Africa's elephants are being massacred in droves in a bid to meet surging demand for ivory from the growing economies of Asia, particularly China and Thailand.

Some 22,000 African elephants were killed illegally in 2012, according to a report last year by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which warned of "local extinctions if the present killing rates continue".

The African elephant population is presently estimated at some 500,000 individuals -- about half the 1980 total.

Environmentalists say destroying confiscated ivory is the only way of ensuring that the contraband is permanently removed from the market.

France destroys stocks of seized ivory (AFP, S. Ramis /

A. Bommenel, abm/jfs)

"There are several cases of seized ivory being 'lost' from stockpiles, ie stolen, then re-entering illegal trade," wildlife crime specialist Wendy Elliott of green group WWF told AFP by email.

French environmental group Robin des Bois, or "Robin Hood", estimates that France has seized some 17 tonnes of the commodity from smugglers.

The ban has since been partially overturned to allow limited legal sales -- a move that many conservationists claim has boosted black-market demand.

Most of France's stash has been held in museums or the storerooms of police and judicial agencies.

The destroyed stockpile consisted of 2.3 tonnes or 698 individual tusks, both unadorned and engraved, as well as 15,357 ivory ornaments including bracelets, necklaces and sculptures.

Call for EU action

Martin said his country was the first in Europe since the 1989 ban to destroy seized ivory in such a public gesture, adding he expected other nations will follow suit.

"We hope that this new approach of systematically destroying seized ivory will be extended to rhino horn and other illegal animal products," said Robin des Bois president Jacky Bonnemains.

"We call upon the rest of the European Union to do the same."

Three tonnes of illegal ivory are displayed on February 6, 2014 in front of

the Eiffel tower in Paris (AFP, Bertrand Guay)

France became the latest country to destroy confiscated ivory after China, which crushed a six-tonne pile in January, and the destruction of a similar stockpile by the United States last November.

The Philippines destroyed five tonnes of tusks in June last year, Gabon destroyed 4.8 tonnes in 2012 and Kenya set fire to a pile of similar weight in 2011. Last month, Hong Kong said it would incinerate 28 tonnes within the next two years.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said such projects should only be undertaken after a full and independent audit of the stock so that none gets "lost" in the process, and finds its way back onto the market.

Environmentalists stress that illicit ivory eradication on its own will not stop the elephant massacre.

Consumers must be made aware of the destruction they were causing, said Stephane Ringuet, an expert with Traffic, a wildlife monitoring group.

"The source of the problem is in Asia, where we are seeing a disproportionate increase in demand for ivory," he told AFP.

Between 1989 and 2011, the biggest hauls of illegal ivory were in China, with more than 33,000 tonnes, according to Traffic, and 17,000 tonnes in Hong Kong.

Related Articles:

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African and Asian states vow to crack down on illegal ivory trade

Chinese ivory smuggler gets record sentence after Kenya trial

Briton Gets 14 Years in Prison for Indonesia Drug Smuggling

Jakarta Globe – AFP, January 22, 2014

Andrea Waldeck (center left) and an interpreter listen to a judge at court
in Surabaya on January 22, 2014. (AFP Photo/Juni Kriswanto)

A British woman was jailed for 14 years Wednesday but escaped the death penalty after admitting that she smuggled crystal methamphetamine into Indonesia from China.

Andrea Waldeck, a former police worker, was found guilty and sentenced at the court in the city of Surabaya, in the east of Indonesia’s main island of Java.

The sentence was lower than prosecutors’ recommendation of 16 years for the 43-year-old, who had smuggled 1.5 kilograms of crystal meth into Indonesia.

She could have received the death sentence for smuggling that quantity of drugs under Indonesian anti-narcotics laws, which are some of the toughest in the world.

“Andrea Waldeck has been proven legally and convincingly guilty of offering to sell or become a middle person to sell drugs,” said presiding judge Faturrachman.

He handed her a 14-year sentence and ordered her to pay a Rp two billion ($167,000) fine.

Waldeck admitted at a previous hearing that she had smuggled the drugs into Indonesia, arriving at Surabaya airport from China.

In a hearing earlier this month, she said was ashamed of her actions.

She was arrested late April at a hotel in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-biggest city, according to her indictment.

She had arrived a day earlier at the city’s airport from China and managed to get past security with the drugs concealed in four plastic packages inside her underwear, the indictment said.

Two members of a drugs gang had been en route to the hotel to pick up the narcotics — but police knew about the plan and managed to get there first and arrest Waldeck, it said.

She claimed that her boyfriend in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou had asked her to traffic the drugs in exchange for $5,000, according to her indictment.

She had had previously worked in southwestern England as a police community support officer, a part-time member of the force with limited powers.

Her case comes after British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced to death in January last year after she was caught trying to bring $2.4 million worth of cocaine into the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

Agence France-Presse

Related Article:

Drug-trafficking British woman in Bali loses appeal against death sentence

Lindsay Sandiford inside a cell at a court in Denpasar, Bali.

Photograph: Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images

.

Swiss crack case of parrot egg underwear smuggler

Google – AFP, 17 October 2013

File picture for illustration shows young parrots at Seropedica Recovery Center,

 a reserve of the Brazilian Environmental Institute near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 

on October 17, 2008 (Austral Foto/AFP/File, Renzo Gostoli)

Geneva — Swiss customs authorities said Thursday that they had arrested a bird specialist who smuggled the eggs of protected parrots in his underwear and travelled the globe trading in rare species.

The customs service said in a statement that the man, whom it did not identify, was though to have trafficked over 150 eggs from endangered parrots that are protected by international law, as well as rare pheasant species.

The man, a Swiss citizen who was also a legal bird trader, was busted at Zurich airport in 2010 with 25 eggs hidden in his underwear as he returned from Brazil.

The customs service explained that it was only revealing details of the case now because of the secrecy surrounding the probe.

Investigators managed to establish that thanks to a solid international network of contacts, the man managed to smuggle more than 150 eggs to buyers in Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico.

The total value of the contraband eggs was 65,000 Swiss francs (54,000 euros, $71,000), the customs service said, adding that it had not been possible to establish where they came from.

Investigators said that the man also had an aviary of several hundred birds, including endangered species.

The Swiss veterinary service also seized seven rare parrots from an accomplice, with an estimated value of 8,000 Swiss francs.

The two men face a heavy fine for trafficking in endangered species.

Huge cocaine haul seized on Air France plane in Paris

BBC News, 21 September 2013

The 30 suitcases were reportedly not registered to any passenger on board

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Police at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport have seized 1.3 tonnes of pure cocaine on board an Air France flight from Venezuela, French officials say.

The drugs were found packed inside 30 suitcases on 11 September, but the operation was revealed on Saturday.

France's Interior minister, Manuel Valls, said it was the biggest drug haul ever made in the Paris area.

Six people were arrested, accused of being members of an international drug smuggling ring, Mr Valls said.

Officials say they believe the drugs were meant for sale in France and had a street value of 200m euros (£169m; $270m).

The Air France flight came from Caracas.

The suitcases with the cocaine reportedly were not registered to any of the passengers.

TF1

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