‘Migrant smuggling is lucrative than drugs, gun trade’

The Director General of the International Organization for Migration, William Lacy Swing has revealed that smugglers of migrants into Europe and other parts of the world find the trade more lucrative and easier than drugs or gun trade.

According to Mr. Lacy Swing, even though most of the migrants move out of desperation, migrant smugglers have accrued over 11 billion dollars from the trade in the last century.

“They keep moving out of desperation, but the smugglers…have earned 11 billion dollars in the last part of the century and they will continue to do this,” Mr. Swing told host of Morning Starr Robert Nii Arday Clegg Wednesday on Starr 103.5FM.

Mr. Swing added: “They buy very cheap boats, charge people an enormous sum and make a lot of money. It is much easier or lucrative for them than running guns or drugs trade but it is all part of the international crime network”.

Record numbers of refugees and migrants fleeing violence and poverty in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea are trying to reach Europe, despite the risks of perilous sea crossings and the inability of countries to provide adequate humanitarian assistance.

Since the beginning of 2015, the number of people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia crossing the Mediterranean to Italy and Greece and using the so-called Balkans route has exploded with migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey and then travelling on through Macedonia and Serbia before entering the EU via Hungary.

Director General of the International Organization for Migration, William Lacy Swing Record arrivals forced Germany to re-impose emergency frontier controls this week, with several neighbors swiftly following suit. Austria, next on the road from Hungary to Germany, said tougher border measures would also take effect.

Germany stepped up the pressure on EU states resisting the plan to spread refugees around the bloc under a mandatory quota system. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the EU should penalize countries that reject quotas.

Hundreds of stranded migrants also spent the night in the open or in makeshift tents close to the Serbian border with Hungary. Some gathered wood for fires.

On Tuesday, Hungary declared a state of emergency in the area, with hundreds of army and police deployed to enforce new laws making it an offence to breach a razor-wire border fence.