The District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Reggio Calabria has requested the trial of the three Afghans involved in the «Parepidemos» investigation and accused of multi-aggravated aiding and abetting illegal immigration and abusive exercise of financial intermediation. Indictment was requested for Mohammad Younos Yawar aged 43 and Mohammad Salim Ghafouri (53) and for Mohammad Javid Attae (42 years). The latter was arrested in June in Hanau, Germany, while the other two in La Rochelle, France.
The investigation began in October 2020 when the carabinieri noticed Mohammad Younos Yawar who, with a van with a French license plate, was in Bova Marina near a reception center where migrants were kept in temporary medical isolation for Covid. Subsequent investigations made it possible to record the movements of the Afghan who, after having brought 10 compatriots on board, traveled across the entire national territory. Before entering the Frejus tunnel, however, he left the migrants in the mountains a few kilometers from the border. Immediately afterwards the man was stopped by the Bardonecchia police and was the only occupant of the vehicle. In the back seats there were some bags with diapers and clothes not belonging to the suspect. Furthermore, the van was equipped with a compartment created specifically to hide people.
The abandonment of the migrants, including some minors, in the mountains, in the cold and bad weather, led the Prosecutor’s Office to also contest the aggravating circumstances of having exposed the people transported to danger to their lives. Furthermore, from the wiretaps it emerged that to save the migrants abandoned in the Alps the suspect had demanded to be paid before the journey. The investigations demonstrated what the investigating judge defined as “an organized transnational system that managed and ensured the clandestine and illegal entry of migrants into various European countries”. Each migrant would have paid 1,500 euros to the suspects for transport.
