LONDON — European police said on Wednesday that they had dismantled a criminal network that smuggled illegal migrants into the European Union, arresting more than 100 suspects across the Continent, from France to the Balkans.
The network smuggled people principally from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Turkey.
Europol, a joint law enforcement agency set up to fight serious crime in the 27-member Union, said 117 house searches had been carried out in operations in the early hours of Tuesday morning that involved more than 1,200 police officers.
The latest crackdown on people-smugglers highlighted a chronic problem for European authorities as would-be migrants, desperate to escape poverty and conflict in their home countries, put their fate in the hands of organized criminal gangs to take a well-worn route via Turkey and the Balkans.
Interpol says the traffic is a high-profit, low-risk enterprise for transnational criminal syndicates.
“People smuggling syndicates are drawn by the huge profits that can be made, while benefiting from weak legislation and the relatively low risk of detection, prosecution and arrest,” according to the international police organization.
The International Organization for Migration (I.O.M.) said in a 2011 report that the activity earns organized crime groups an estimated $3 to $10 billion a year worldwide.
Europol described this week’s action as one of the largest coordinated efforts against people smugglers at a European level. It was also the latest indication that countries are pooling resources to fight international organized crime gangs.
Police and migration experts say there is a difference between people-smuggling, in which would-be migrants voluntarily pay to illegally cross transnational borders, and people-trafficking, which involves the criminal exploitation of duped or unwilling victims.
“Smuggling implies the procurement of irregular entry into a state of which the individual is neither a citizen nor a permanent resident, for financial or material gain,” according to the I.O.M. “Trafficking, on the other hand, occurs for the purpose of exploitation, often involving forced labor and prostitution.”
However, that may turn out to be a fine distinction for would-be illegal migrants who face abuse at the hands of the crime gangs.
Europol said migrants were often smuggled in inhuman and dangerous conditions in small hidden compartments in the floor of buses or trucks, in freight trains or on boats.
Gangs operating on the so-called West Balkans smuggling route have proved to be innovative and flexible in the face of increased international cooperation to tackle the trade.
Greek police broke up a smuggling network in 2007 that was transporting Albanian migrants across a dangerous mountain route. The smugglers then switched to alternative routes via Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia to Italy, Hungary and Slovenia.
The main destinations of the illegal migrants are France, Britain, Spain, Italy and Belgium. The raids this week involved operations in France and Germany as well as eastern Europe and Turkey.
Europol reported 103 arrests and said cell phones, computers, cash and a semi-automatic rifle with a large amount of ammunition were among the items seized.
In November, British immigration officers arrested eight suspects in an alleged criminal network suspected of helping Iranian migrants reach Britain from mainland Europe. That followed a joint investigation with Spain’s Guardia Civil that led to 11 other arrests in Madrid and Alicante.
Although the illegal immigrants may be traveling willingly in the search of a better life, people-smuggling is not a victimless crime.
The I.O.M. said in its 2011 report: “Numerous other crimes are oftentimes linked to people smuggling – human trafficking, identity fraud, corruption and money laundering – creating shadow governance systems that undercut the rule of law.”
