Dutch police uncover scam to fly refugees to Britain

Dutch police are probing an unprecedented bid to smuggle Albanian migrants into Britain via Belgium on a small plane, a spokesman said Wednesday.

“An inquiry has been opened into nine arrests in connection with migrant trafficking by plane,” Dutch prosecution spokesman Peter Elberse told AFP.

Dutch police announced last month they had arrested the nine as they tried to smuggle “11 Albanian adults and three young children” via the Netherlands “onto a flight from Belgium probably heading for England.”

“It is the first time in The Netherlands that there has been an attempt to smuggle people by plane. Usually it has been done by car, bus or truck, or by boats on water,” the police said in a statement.

The arrests include two Dutch bus drivers, stopped in a roadcheck in southern Breda on July 6 as they tried to drive five Albanians to Belgium, and two British pilots detained at the central small Dutch airport of Teuge.

“Earlier in the day at Teuge, the two English pilots had been observed fuelling the plane and preparing for a flight via Belgium most likely to England,” the police statement said.

Four other suspects were arrested later in raids on apartments and hotel rooms in Amsterdam, before police captured the suspected gang leader in the Dutch capital.

Police also seized 10,000 euros in cash, as well as mobile phones, a Mercedes car and the small eight-seater plane, in which a pilot’s licence and flight plan was found.

The nine men in detention are aged between 29 and 62 and are of British, Dutch and Albanian nationalities. They remain at liberty but are being treated as suspects, Elberse added.

A request from Dutch prosecutors to keep the two British pilots in custody was refused, but the decision is to be appealed on August 10.