Police in Crotone, southern Italy, carried out an operation dubbed "Ikaros" against alleged asylum fraudsters on Wednesday. A total of 24 suspects were arrested. The charges against them include association to commit a crime aimed at favoring illegal immigration, forgery, influence peddling, and corruption.

Attorneys, police officers among suspects

Among the suspects are four attorneys, an employee of the prefect's office working for the territorial commission for asylum seekers, a traffic cop, and two police officers from the Crotone police station. Fifteen of the suspects were sent to jail, while nine were put on house arrest.

They allegedly belonged to two organizations that sold stay permits to people staying abroad -- mainly Kurdish Iraqis -- who weren't entitled to them.

Obtained stay permits illegally

The attorneys allegedly created fake documents that claimed their customers lived or worked in Italy, even though they didn't, so that they could obtain a stay permit that would provide international protection and freedom of movement in Italy and Europe.

The customers would then take a flight from their home country to Italy, enter on a tourist permit, collect the stay permit, and return to the country from which they claimed to be fleeing, investigators said.

International asylum fraud network

Crotone police investigators, who investigated the case from 2017 to 2020, reportedly found that the organizations had developed a network throughout Italy as well as abroad.

Crotone prosecutor Giuseppe Capoccia, who coordinated the investigation, said "this operation ... shows that the State has the antibodies to take action [against stay permit fraud]."