DHAKA, 19 April 2005 — The Bangladesh Navy busted a people-smuggling racket by intercepting a boat in the Bay of Bengal packed with 90 people who were being smuggled to Greece for employment, sources said yesterday.
All on board have been detained and being questioned by police.
“We have started questioning them to find out more about the traffickers linked with the incident,” said Amjad Hussain, police chief in the southeastern port city of Chittagong.
The patrol boat challenged a wooden fishing boat as it headed toward the island of Kutubdia, near the southern port city of Chittagong, and found 90 Bangladeshi youths on board, police official Mahbub Alam Khan said.
The vessel’s three crewmembers confessed they were taking the youths to a larger vessel that would carry them to Greece, Khan said quoting navy officials.
The navy handed them all over to police late Sunday, he said.
Those detained told police they handed their passports to the agents and paid up to 300,000 taka ($4,728) each for a promised journey to Greece, Cyprus or Italy.
“We put our trust in them as we desperately need some jobs and money,” 22-year-old Mohammad Mamun said.
Mamun named one travel organizer as Ali, who he said collected would-be migrants from all over Bangladesh.
“Ali and his people behaved well with us and some in the group were even ready to pay up to 500,000 taka each if agents had found them a really good paying job,” Mamun said. “We never thought we will be cheated.”
Chittagong police officer Saidur Rahman said the gang appeared to be well-organized and vowed to track them down.
Last month, police arrested a job agent after 11 Bangladeshis died at sea. The 11 were among a group of 26 job seekers trying to reach Spain from Morocco.
