Probe finds migrants arrived in Italy from Malta with false IDs

Rome: A Guinean national has been arrested in Rome on human trafficking charges for helping facilitate the clandestine arrivals of hundreds of African migrants to Italy.

A Guinean human trafficker has been arrested in Rome based on accusations he helped hundreds of migrants board regular flights from Africa to Italy using fake identification documents from Malta.

According to statements from the Treviso financial police and the Anzio-Nettuno police, the trafficker is one of three people who helped design and facilitate an intricate mechanism to illegally bring irregular migrants to Italy.

The foreigners, all from Africa, were allegedly taken to Malta, where they had access to temporary lodgings.

Later, making use of fake documents or ones in the names of people willing to allow them to use them, they boarded flights to airports in Treviso, Rome Ciampino, Rome Fiumicino, Bari, Torino, Orio al Serio, Naples and Perugia.

Others took ferries to Catania. Fees per person ranged from 450 to 700 euros.

Dubbed “Malta’s Passeur”, the operation began in December 2019 when two clandestine migrants, both with the same fake passport, were detained at the Antonio Canova airport in Treviso.

In October 2021, the human trafficker and two others from Guinea were placed on house arrest in the evening and night hours and required to remain in their municipality of residence.

However immediately after being notified of the order, the man left the Naples province to seek refuge abroad, prompting the Treviso court to issue a warrant for his arrest in January 2022.

He was taken into custody after seeking renewal of his stay permit at a police station in Anzio-Nettuno, where the financial police found out about the warrant.

The man was first taken to the Velletri jail and then transferred to the Treviso jail, where another man from the three was arrested in November 2022 in Orleans, France, and extradited to Italy.