Roundup: Arrests of smugglers induce change in migrant routes to Europe

Italian authorities said the increasing number of people arrested for allegedly smuggling migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean in latest months had a role in making traffickers change their routes, local media reported on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, up to 30,000 people of different nationalities were estimated as having a role in such traffic considering the whole migration inflow into Europe, according to the European Union (EU) law enforcement agency Europol.

Over 100 alleged smugglers have been arrested in Italy between June and August only, prosecutors in Palermo said on Monday after an operational meeting.

Phone conversations between people suspected of leading migrant smuggling rings were wiretapped over a longer period of time, giving evidences that traffickers worried about the increasing danger of being detected and arrested once landed in Italy, AdnKronos news agency reported.

In one of the wiretaps, two men openly said that "too many got arrested, the Mediterranean is becoming too dangerous, it is better to switch and cross by land (towards Europe)", according to investigative sources cited by the agency.

In another conversation, two people expressed concerns for the recent conviction of suspected smugglers in Italy, including a Somali man sentenced in February to 30 years in prison for human trafficking and criminal conspiracy in connection with a 2013 shipwreck in which 366 migrants were believed to have died off Italian coasts.

The major probe into the migrant smuggling has been run for months by the prosecution office in Sicily's regional capital Palermo, with four prosecutors from the Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA) and three other colleagues involved.

The increased risk of being arrested in Italy would have brought smugglers to focus more and more on alternative routes across the Balkans, according to investigators.

The suggestion would be corroborated by the sharp increase in the number of asylum-seekers and migrants passing through the so-called "Western Balkan" route lately: at least 244,855 people arrived in Greece up to August and some 90,000 passed through Serbia, according to UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Serbian authorities respectively.

The Western Balkan path involves two major migration routes to the EU: a minor one at the border between Turkey and Bulgaria, and a major one going from Turkey to Greece, and then through Macedonia and Serbia into Hungary, according to the EU border control agency Frontex.

Earlier this week, local media also reported Europol agency warned the fight against migrant smuggling must be a top priority for all EU member states, since the criminal business would involve up to 30,000.

This figure would consider both the smuggling networks managing the sea route towards Italy, with an estimated 3,000 suspects involved, and all those moving migrants and refugees across the countries around the external boundaries of the EU, the Europol said.

Tackling the migrant smuggling would need to be prioritized also in view of the high number of victims, especially in the perilous journey people make across the Mediterranean on unsafe crafts.

Up to 3,500 people were estimated to have lost their life at sea in 2014, and at least 2,750 so far this year, according to the UNHCR. Endit