Verdicts coming in major French trial casting light on deadly migrant-smuggling trade

A court in northern France is to announce verdicts Tuesday in a major trial of 18 people accused of participating in the lucrative and often deadly trade of smuggling migrants across the treacherous and busy waters between France and the U.K.

The trial in Lille has shed light on the clandestine business in what has been a particularly deadly year for the many thousands of men, women and children who attempt the crossing on small and often dangerously overloaded boats.

The 18 defendants were swept up in a pan-European operation that led to dozens of arrests in Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands in July 2022.

Those arrested included the suspected ringleader of a network that smuggled as many as 10,000 people across the bustling shipping lanes of the English Channel.

The police raids also led to the seizures of 135 boats in Germany and the Netherlands, more than 1,000 life jackets, outboard engines, packs of paddles and cash.

Migrants have long used the wide beaches of northern France as launching points for attempted crossings to the U.K. It's favored by many as a destination for reasons of language or family ties, or because they believe getting asylum or finding work there without immigration papers will be easier than on the continent.

Europe’s increasingly strict asylum rules, growing xenophobia and hostile treatment of migrants are also pushing many migrants north.

The British and French governments have worked for years to stop the risky crossings but have failed to deter people fleeing conflict or crushing poverty. Smugglers charge thousands of euros (dollars) per person for passage.

More than 31,000 migrants have made the perilous Channel crossing so far this year, more than in all of 2023, though fewer than in 2022. At least 56 people have perished in the attempts this year, according to French officials, making 2024 the deadliest since the crossings began surging in 2018.

The U.K.’s previous Conservative government hoped to deter crossings with a contentious plan to send would-be asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer scrapped the expensive and unrealized plan after his center-left Labour Party triumphed in elections in July; instead he has stressed the need for international political and law-enforcement cooperation against people-smuggling gangs.

On Monday, Starmer told a conference of international police organization Interpol that “people-smuggling should be viewed as a global security threat similar to terrorism.” He said intelligence and law-enforcement agencies should try to “stop smuggling gangs before they act” in the same way they do in counterterrorism operations.

Fourteen of the 18 defendants in Lille are from Iraq, with the others from Iran, Poland, France and the Netherlands.

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