The anti-mafia police in Palermo have uncovered a criminal group that organized illegal migrant crossings from Tunisia to Italy aboard fast powerboats. The group has been conducting activities "threatening national security," prosecutors in Palermo said Tuesday.
Passengers and potential clients who had contacted the organization included suspected Islamist militants, according to investigators coordinated by Palermo prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi and State attorneys Claudia Ferrari and Francesca La Chioma. Prosecutors have issued 15 detention orders against Tunisian and Italian nationals from Marsala, in Sicily, and Florence on charges of conspiring to aid and abet illegal immigration and smuggling tobacco. The criminal organization also had links in France and Belgium.
The organization provided passengers "with safe, secret and fast maritime transportation", that lasted no more than three and a half hours and was therefore "particularly attractive", prosecutors wrote in the warrant. One of the potential passengers, who was waiting to travel to Italy, was tapped talking to an alleged gang member and expressing concern that he could be arrested by Tunisian authorities before leaving or by Italian authorities once he had landed over his jihadist terror links, investigators said. In the tapped phone call, the man reportedly said he had asked an unidentified "sheikh" for help. The criminal organization also had links in France and Belgium, both countries under high alert from the threat of terror attacks.