Police arrest 10 for smuggling migrants to Britain

Belgian police carried out a major operation targeting a gang that
trafficked people to Britain, arresting 10 alleged smugglers and
finding 27 migrants, police said Thursday.
Police made the arrests on Wednesday in a raid on a motorway parking
lot in the small western town of Wetteren and in a number of house
searches.
“Belgium is a transit country for migrants who want to travel to the
United Kingdom. Trucks are often used as a means of transport, with or
without the knowledge of the driver,” Brussels police said in a
statement.
It said the gang members were “mainly of black African origin” and
exclusively used the motorway parking lot in Wetteren, around 40 km
(25 miles) northwest of Brussels, to smuggle the migrants, who
included women, children and babies.
Most of the 27 migrants were from Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia, the
statement said.
The operation comes after a police chief in Belgium’s Dutch-speaking
Flanders region said his officers were now waving through migrants
trying to reach Britain illegally.
Wim Pieteraerens, chief of police in Kruibeke, was quoted by De
Standaard newspaper as saying said that “basic police care was
compromised” because of the amount of resources they spent dealing
with migrants.
“Moreover, we have very little impact because up to 99 percent of the
arrested people were released by the immigration department,” he
added.(AFP)