Three people were arrested in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands for supplying the rubber latex that smugglers use to allow people to cross the canal. A 33-year-old woman from London was arrested yesterday in Glasgow. This happened after the Dutch military police in our country had already arrested two British men in the same case last Wednesday.
The three are suspected of supplying boats for a risky crossing over the crowded shipping channel between the UK and the Netherlands. The English police today issued a report of the woman’s arrest. A Dutch Military Police spokesperson confirmed the message and also that two people have already been arrested in the Netherlands, but he does not want to say more regarding the investigation. He will likely know more about the arrests next week.
The two were arrested in the Netherlands, a 33-year-old man from London’s Hammersmith and a 28-year-old without permanent residency. The woman in England is also a suspect, but was released after being questioned. In the Netherlands, a number of deflated boats were also confiscated.
The arrests all relate to the investigation of the purchase of inflatable boats in the UK and Europe, which are then transported to the Netherlands. The boats would then be handed over to organized crime groups involved in people smuggling across the English Channel from northern France and Belgium.
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A spokesman for the English authorities said: “The organized crime groups behind this smuggling are not concerned with safety or the preservation of lives, but they see migrants as merely goods to benefit from and exploit.” The captured woman and the two men in the Netherlands supplied the inflatable boats. “In our opinion, knowing what it will be used for, people who supply criminals with boats are guilty.”
A spokesman for the Dutch Military Police agrees that this form of people smuggling is dangerous. “We have conducted an investigation like this before and it turns out also that many people did not escape from this crossing.”
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