Niger has arrested a Libyan man suspected of smuggling thousands of migrants through the Sahel country to Europe after a joint investigation with French and Spanish authorities, French police said on Friday.
The 29-year-old, who was arrested on December 20 in the Nigerian city of Agadez, told investigators that he had been monitoring the departure of “60 migrants every week for seven years”, said Jean-Christophe Hilaire of the Directorate for International Security Cooperation (DCIS) in the French Ministry of the Interior.
Pick-up trucks have been driving migrants – mostly from Nigeria or Cameroon – to the border with Algeria or war-torn Libya for 1,500 to 2,000 euros ($1,600 to 2,100), he said.
The suspect is currently being held in the capital Niamey, Hilaire said.
The EU-funded operation has been carried out with the help of three French police and three Spanish police.
Many West African migrants are trying to reach Libya in the hope of crossing the Mediterranean to a better life in Europe.
They usually flock to the Nigerian city of Agadez, where smugglers offer to take them to the Libyan border.
The government in Niamey passed a law in 2015 to make migrant smuggling a crime, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
But Nigerien security sources said the move would only encourage smugglers to use “new, more dangerous routes”.
European police have been in Niger since 2017. Since then, 824 people have been detained, the French interior ministry said.