France targets people smugglers

The Dover tragedy has prompted the clampdown

The French Government has announced that it is trebling the penalties for anyone caught smuggling illegal immigrants into the country.

The crackdown comes a month after 58 Chinese people were found dead in a lorry at the UK port of Dover, and on the day that Italian police announced they had smashed three big trafficking gangs.

Illegal immigration has become the object of a real trade in human beings, which is now part of major organised crime

Jean-Pierre Chevenement, French Interior Minister

The tougher French stance was unveiled at a conference in Paris, where representatives of 30 countries have gathered to discuss ways of cracking down on the trade.

The two-day seminar was prompted by the Dover tragedy, and ministers and other delegates attending will try to work out ways of co-ordinating their response to what is a worsening problem.

French Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement said his country, as current president of the European Union, would seek to lead the fight against the traffickers.

Tighten punishments

He said fines for individuals or companies caught smuggling illegal immigrants would be tripled to FF30,000 ($4,250).

He said there were three priorities:

• to harmonise laws on trafficking and the penalties it incurs
• to make it easier for a country to deport immigrants already identified as illegal in another member state
• to tighten punishments for individuals or companies caught transporting immigrants.

In the UK, lorries are searched daily for stowaways

An Irish delegate told the conference that most lorry drivers bringing people into the republic were doing so knowingly.

"Transporters will always claim they don't know about illegals," said Pat Folan, assistant secretary at the Irish Justice Ministry.

"But I think it would be logical to say they do know, and they're doing it for the money - 95% of them are aware."

Italy smuggling ring

Earlier, Italian police said the three gangs they had broken up had smuggled at least 5,000 Chinese migrants into the European Union in recent months.

A total of 40 people were arrested, most of them seized during a series of raids on Tuesday and Wednesday in 15 Italian cities, including Trieste, Rome, Bologna and Verona.

The migrants entered Italy from the Balkans and were put to work until they had each paid thousands of dollars to the smugglers.

As well as Chinese suspects, those arrested included Italian, Slovenian and Croatian nationals.

The police say it is their largest operation yet against illegal immigration from China, a relatively recent phenomenon in Italy where most migrants come from the Balkans or North Africa.

UK officials estimate that up to one million people are smuggled world-wide every year by an illegal industry worth up to $30bn.

They say that the number of illegal immigrants detected trying to enter Britain has gone up from 61 in 1991 to 16,000 last year.