Tobacco Smuggling Route Used For Humans

Seven Moroccan and Malian nationals were apprehended after using former tobacco smuggling routes for illegal immigration between Spain and France.

A joint investigation by Spain’s Civil Guard and the French National Gendarmerie, supported by Europol, led officers to dismantle an organized crime group involved in migrant smuggling. The group is believed to have moved irregular migrants from their country of arrival to another destination within the European Union.

“The organized crime group would firstly seek newly arrived irregular migrants in southern and eastern Spanish coastal areas such as Murcia, Alicante, Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa, Navarra and Barcelona,” Europol wrote in a press note.

“The migrants arrived by boat from destinations in North and West Africa. Those irregular migrants would then be taken by road to France via former tobacco smuggling routes in Guipuzcoa and Navarra. The main destination point from there would be Bordeaux, France, with the organized crime group facilitating further illegal immigration from Bordeaux to countries across the European Union.”