Transcript in english

ON THE TRAFFICKER’S TRAIL

Documentary on trafficking people to the European Union

Director: Kati Juurus
Camera: Ivar Heinmaa
Editor: Minna Nuotio
Interpreter & assistant reporter: Mohammad Azizi
Producer: Matti Virtanen
Production: YLE TV 1 / MOT

length: 29”

Intro:

Trafficker 1 (smoking a cigarette; sounds from a mosque heard in the background): "Maybe I'm hooked on this, I can't do any other work. May well be. I'm hooked on this job."

(Pictures from the journey, group of illegal immigrants in the night somewhere in the Evros delta)

Episode title: ON THE TRAFFICKER’S TRAIL

Voice-over (VO), reporter Kati Juurus: Some months ago, I was tipped about an Iraqi man living in Finland, who works as a trafficker of people into Europe. I met him a couple of times.

After negotiations it was agreed that he would allow MOT's camera team to follow him bringing Iraqi kurds illegally into Europe.

He would also tell us about his work, with the condition that his identity would not be revealed.

To take our team on the route, he would charge 6.000 US dollars, somewhat over 4.000 euros.

Pictures from Istanbul; a street scene. A muezzin's prayer call in the background.

VO: Turkey is the main entrance route for refugees and illegal immigrants into Europe. Half of all illegal entries into the EU take place over the border from Turkey to Greece. Last year this border was crossed by 88.000 illegal immigrants. Almost all of them came with the help of traffickers.

Much of this traffic passes through Istanbul. Smuggling refugees to the EU area is a sizable and illegal business here. Money – and people – are flowing from poor countries through Turkey into all corners of Europe through the traffickers’ networks.

The trafficker we are following is an Iraqi kurd himself. He has arrived to Istanbul from Finland a couple of days ago.

Trafficker 1: “I’ve been doing this for over ten years. My job is to take the people who arrive here from Iraq and take them all the way to Greece.”

Question to trafficker 1: “How many people do you think you have taken to Europe?”

Trafficker 1: “I can’t say exactly. But there are a lot, quite a lot. Many have made it, but many have also been caught. Out of one hundred persons (customers) about 60-70 make it and the rest are caught. From Greece they continue to anywhere in Europe.”

Question: “Do many aim to get to Finland?”

Trafficker 1: “Certainly. Especially nowadays there are many who talk about Finland. This has been the situation for about a year – everybody talks about Finland.”

VO: Until recently, Finland’s policy has been that, asylum seekers will not be returned to Iraq at all. Last spring the Immigration office changed this policy: asylum seekers may be deported to Iraq, unless they have personal grounds for asylum or a residence permit.

Question to trafficker 1: “How has this affected the situation?”

Trafficker 1: “It has led to a reduction in numbers. - - People talk about this a lot, and the number of newcomers is down. Very few actually. It’s not like it used to be.”

VO: This year, more asylum seekers have come to Finland from Iraq than from any other country – by the end of August, 946 Iraqi nationals had submitted an asylum application in Finland. But the number of new entrants has gone down since June.

Pause, return to the streets of Istanbul

VO: The group we are going to follow is set to go. It is supposed to head for Greece in a couple of days. Before that, supplies must be bought: life vests, a rubber boat, food and water.

(People at a bazaar)

The trafficker moves around town just like anybody, but he doesn’t like to be filmed. The customers however have nothing against being in front of the camera. This man belongs to our group and he wants a new pair of shoes for the journey.

Trafficker 1: “We charge our customers 3.500 – 4.000 dollars per journey, but not all of that stays in our pocket. It may well be that we make a net of 400-500 dollars per customer. Everything costs money: the car, the apartment, like the one we are in now. We pack the customers in the flat and pay about one thousand a month. If we book the car for the whole journey to the border, the drivers charge 2.000 dollars. So we pay him 2.000 just to get to the border from Istanbul.”

VO: I asked the trafficker how the money transfers are handled.

Tarfficker 1: “The money moves through money transfer offices. It’s like a bank, but unofficial. For example, somebody in Hawler (Kurdistan) has an office and he knows somebody in Turkey with an office. And you don’t even need an office if you have money. Someone goes to the office on the customer's behalf, makes a deposit and asks for the money to be transferred to Istanbul. When the deposit is made, the office gives us the donor’s secret code. We take the code to a person with a connection to the office. We give him the secret code and tell him that we are entitled to such and such a sum through from this person, and the money is paid to us.”

VO: Thanks to this system, customers don’t need to carry thousands of dollars of cash on them. As they reach their destination, they call their contact person – often a family member – who pays the fee to the money transfer office used by traffickers. The customers are held as hostages until the money is payed.

VO: The trafficker tells us that, money moves in a similar fashion through these unofficial banks from Istanbul to Greece. Or anywhere in Europe. I ask him how he spends the money.

Trafficker 1: “What I do with the money? A very good question. Every penny goes towards the expenses, that’s where they go. - - We make a lot of phone calls, we pay a lot of rent for the apartments. We go around, spending the money. - - I know that, according to the law, this is illegal, but what can I say. This is what I’ve been doing. As I said, I’m hooked on this work.”

VO: We are taken to a traffickers’ apartment, which is located in an ordinary block of flats in a relatively clean and central part of the city. In the flat we meet a group of Kurdish men – some of them traffickers, some customers – waiting for the next departure.

Question to Trafficker 1: “How do you find your customers?”

Trafficker 1: “Most of them come from Iraq, and they make the first contact with us. Some know people we have transported before. People ask each other, whom to trust. There are relatives and acquaintances. That’s the way things usually go.”

VO: One of the customers is seriously ill. He tells us he need a liver transplant.

Mohammad: “There’s no treatment available in Iraq or it’s neighbors. I’ve been to Iran and Bagdad and other places – no treatment. - - I’ve heard that, Finland gives residence permits to people, and it would also be possible to get treatment there.”

Mohammad: “So far, I have paid 4.000 dollars to one person, and that’s just a guarantee. Altogether, what I think I’m going to need is maybe twice that. Two or three times more; I have no idea how much I still have to spend.”

VO: The man says he is from a wealthy family. His relatives have sold land, so that he could take the journey. I ask him what he thinks about the trafficker.

Mohammad: “It’s a matter of luck. Some take you over on a boat, it capsizes and you drown. Some are so good they take you exactly where you want. It’s down to luck. Some are competent and some are bad.”

Ali Hikmat Baker: “I’m not really old enough to take part in a journey like this. I was born in 1994, so I’m 15. It is not an appropriate age for a trip like this. Even some big men can’t make it, but unfortunately, this is my situation.”

VO: Ali tells us his father is dead, and his mother has married a new man. The stepfather does not approve of the boy.

Ali Hikmat Baker: “Mother loves him. Somehow she collected the money for me, sent me over here and told me to go away. - - Unfortunately I could not resist mother, because she loved that man. I had a job and I was enrolled in secondary school, there were no problems. But mother told me to go, and I had nothing to say to that. A couple of times, my stepfather tied me up and put me in a sack and beat me. It was like that.”

VO: The Kurdish customers are waiting in quite good conditions at the trafficers’ apartment. The situation is quite different for the Bangladeshis. They are kept in a much worse place in an Istanbul suburb. Nobody knows how many such secret apartments – or refugee warehouses - there are in Istanbul. On the other hand, it is inconceivable that the neighbors weren't aware of what’s going on.

(Pictures from a room full of Bengali refugees)

VO: These men are being kept locked up. The flat is being watched by grim-faced Kurdish guards. Despite the harsh conditions, the men seem to be upbeat. Soon they will be in Europe.

( Inside a van, on the road towards the border)

VO: The journey towards the Greek border has begun. The blonde female reporter is not allowed on board. Our cameraman and interpreter squeeze themselves into the van with other customers. 15-year old Ali is on board, but the liver patient is not accepted because he is not well enough.

Mohammad: “I want to tell them to be careful and go with God to the border. I hope God protects them, but it’s a matter of luck. Insallah, they will reach their goal.”

VO: There are 25 people on board the van. Three of them are traffickers and one is the hired driver. The ride takes three and a half hours.

The agreed deal with the traffickers includes a seemingly tolerable route. After the car ride there would be a half-hour walk, then a crossing of the 50-meter wide (Evros) river on rubber boats over to Greek territory. Greek drivers would then pick up the group from an agreed location near the town of Alexandropolis.

Trafficker 1: “At that point our responsibility is over. The Greek driver takes them, and we stay behind. We take the trip back and they drive all the way to Athens.”

VO: But the trip is not that easy. On the Turkish side, the terrain is still rather easy to travel. The traffickers set the pace, because they have to look out for the border guards.

(The group ducks in the bushes, trying to stay out of sight - it is getting dark. Sounds in the distance.)

VO: Barking of police dogs is heard from the vicinity.

(The group continues to walk in the estuary. Small talk, familiar faces from Istanbul are seen again, watching and listening to the situation. Then, it is night again. Ali is crying of exhaustion, a woman consoles him...)

Trafficker 1's voice: "If you get caught in Turkey, they detain you and take you the town of Edirne in the border area. There's a police house where they keep you. From there the Iraqis are sent back (home)."

VO: After a couple of hours in hiding and trekking in the mud, the group arrives at the shoreline. But this is not a river, but the sea. A glass fiber boat arrives, operated by two Turks. The travelers are divided into two groups. Out to sea, the first group encounters Turkish authorities on a fast inflatable craft, but they are allowed to proceed.

The sea journey takes less than an hour. It ends in Greece.

( Morning pictures of the group sleeping under the sun. Waking up. .)

Leyla Shirbak: "This is the fifth time I'm taking this route. I've already tried four times, but it is difficult. - If you want to go to Europe, you should take a legal route. This is difficult: you don't know if you are going to live or die."

Leyla Shirbak: "I know I am risking everything. I may die on the way, or if the trafficker is not decent he may kill or beat or rape me. I am a girl, not a boy. The traffickers may abuse me."

Ali Hikmat Baker: "I don't know anything about this route, I don't know where I am. There is no more water or food. I don't mind that much about the food, but the lack of water drives me crazy."

Ahmed, to his brother Fuath: "Don't cry, put your head on my knee. Stop crying."

Ahmed: "I'm from Shekhan, which is a very bad place. - - They slaughter people there, I've seen it myself. One car stopped, the driver got out and started shooting. I saw him kill a man. It was horrible. - - The traffickers do what they want. They don't care if you are on board, if you fall in the water, if you die or anything. When we were in that boat, by God my heart was beating. All the time I said oh God oh God oh God. I can't swim. And the boat was swaying all the time."

VO: This Greek-Turkish border zone is in the muddy Evros delta. For the illegal immigrants it is easy to find hiding places among the coastal reeds. - On the way, the group led by our trafficker meets other immigrants who have been left behind from their own groups. They join the flock.

Trafficker 1: "I've been caught many times in Greece. And they've just turned me back. - - Instead of deporting you officially to Turkey they just take you somewhere on the border, a military area, tell you to go away and not come back."

VO: According to European border authorities, Greece seldom succeeds in deporting entrants, because Turkey refuses to accept them - despite a bilateral deportation treaty.

Greek authorities often keeps them detained for a while and then lets them go.

Trafficker 1: "If we are caught with our customers, nobody reveals who is the trafficker. But if it happens that, someone reveals who the trafficker is, then we face proceedings and have to accept verdicts."

Trafficker 1: "First they beat you good, so that you don't wake up for two days. And then they drag you to court. And if they find you guilty, you are given 3-5 years prison."

(The walk continues...)

VO: Our cameraman and interpreter decide to turn back, but the others don't have a choice. They still have one branch of the river to cross on the dinghy, and another long walk. It is going to take another day before they reach the meeting place where a car should pick them up.

(Street scenes from Athens. Screen text:Athens, three months later.)

Ali Hikmat Baker: "The guy who had a little brother with him - he could not continue walking anymore. - He said he was dizzy and he can't make it. - One, two, three times we waited for him, and then we left. The trafficker said OK we have to go, and we did."

Ali: "Many of us were separated on the way. When we got to the meeting place, six of us were put in a regular car. One sat in the front, two were in the back seat's legroom and three were back in the trunk."

Ali: "Then they took us to a flat which was called the hostage apartment. - Most of the hostages were Afghans. The room was full of sweat, heat and steam. It was terribly crowded; sleeping was possible in a sitting position, if someone felt like sleeping."

VO: The entrants are usually released from these holdouts as soon as the transport fee is transferred to Greece. Ali was also released, but it turned out his mother had not been able to pay. Instead, she had given the family home as collateral for the traffickers.

Ali: "If my mother doesn't pay, the trafficker has a right to sell the house. - God knows I owe the traffickers 3.500 dollars."

VO: Ali is now in Athens, without any money or documents. One of our trafficker's local colleagues has arranged a temporary place for him to stay. We are unable to figure out, if his food and lodging are being added on to the family's debt.

The other trafficker also agrees to talk to us, identity hidden.

Trafficker 2: "Ali came to me through Turkey. - My job is to send people to Italy."

Trafficker 2: "We have specialized tasks; for example, that guy (Trafficker 1) and the others brought them here. Then they are passed on from hand to hand."

Trafficker 2: "I've sent him (Ali) twice on a truck with other customers, families, to Italy. There they were caught and sent back to Greece."

Ali: "Twice I've gone to Italy and both times we were caught. And when we were returned, they put us to jail."

VO: Ali was released again, but he does not have permission to stay - and no chance of going back. He is stuck in Europe, where he didn't even want to come.

Ali: "I never decided to come to Europe. - It's my mother's fault that I'm here, and it is absolutely not my wish. The Europe that people want to go to, it is for those that are over 18."

EU border authorities have criticized Greece for not always booking or registering illegal immigrants in the manner stipulated in European treaties. The detained immigrants are just given a formal suggestion to leave the country, but the departure is not enforced in any way.

VO: The trafficker in Athens would like to get rid of Ali.

Trafficker 2: "Here's how it goes: I try to evict him from Greece, to Finland for example, so that he might have a place there. - For the moment, Finland is the best destination, because there you can get a residence permit and they treat you humanely."

Trafficker 2: "We are not charging him anything now, but there has to be a collateral for him in the office. - It's six to seven thousand to Finland. 6.000-7.000 euros. - Actually, it's all up to the Turkish side now, whether he gets money from there. - The trafficker in Turkey, I don't want to say the name, but it's up to him to send me the money."

The trafficker in Athens tells us he knows people who can make a Finnish passport to Ali in just one day when necessary.

Trafficker 2: "He's professional at it. What they do here is the grey passport (alien's passport). They've made many of those for people that have gone (to Finland) and made it, but some have also been caught."

VO: During the first quarter of this year, Greek authorities caught and booked almost 400 human traffickers.

Trafficker 2 : "This work varies a lot. If you bring people from Turkey to Greece, they can punish you hard. But if you take people from Greece to Italy, the sentences are lighter because you are taking people out of here. - But if you bring them from Turkey, the Greeks don't like that at all, and you may be sentenced really hard."

The trafficker claims that, it is possible to get out of jail in Greece with money. We don't have any independent evidence for this.

Trafficker 2 : "There are people here that have got out of jail for 35.000 euros. Others have had to pay 80.000. They have payed money to get themselves out of prison. But there are some who don't have money, and they have to sit through their sentences."

VO: The trafficker is Ali's only hope, since he doesn't know anybody else in Athens. He is already in debt to the traffickers, and new debts will be added to the bill if he is sent elsewhere.

Ali: "All I'm saying is that Europe is not for me. Europe is quite nice, but I don't want that. When I go out now, I'm alone and I see everybody walking with their father or mother or brother. And I can't talk to anybody."

VO: I ask Ali what he thinks about the traffickers now.

Ali: "What do I think about them. I'm not saying they are bad or that they are good. But I can say that they don't care much about me. They get a thousand people a day."

VO: And what does he think about the huge sums of money they charge?

Ali: "It is certainly a lot of money, but if they didn't exist, people would have a really hard time getting into Europe."

Ali: "I usually sit inside and just think about things. Sometimes I think what will happen to me in the future. Where should I go, why has all this happened to me even though I'm just a child. What happens when I grow up?"

THE END