• After a year of investigation, the Toulouse border police dismantled a suspected illegal immigration network at the end of September.

  • The network is suspected of having taken care of illegal immigrants of Algerian nationality from Lérida, in Spain, to the Pink City.

  • According to investigators, he was paid between 300 to 700 euros per passage and per person.

In one year, the investigators, who had placed members of the network under surveillance, listed 150 crossings of the Franco-Spanish border with the support of two to six illegal immigrants each time.

At 700 euros per person, 300 euros sometimes under a decreasing rate for groups, the business was lucrative.

But he suffered a big setback on September 27 when the Toulouse border police teams took action.

In two days, they arrested five people and extracted two others from prison where they had landed this summer for other acts, according to a joint press release from the Haute-Garonne prefecture and the Ministry of Justice.

The date of the dragnet was chosen according to the return to France of the presumed leader of this illegal immigration network.

This 40-year-old, residing in Lérida, in the north of Spain, supervised the routing of Algerian compatriots, already in an irregular situation in Spain, and wishing to join relatives in the South-West of France.

Dropped off in front of Matabiau station or picked up for a fee

According to the elements of the investigation, which started in July 2021 – when a “conveyor” was arrested by customs in Cierp-Gaud, south of Haute-Garonne – “five to six smugglers” were in charge of transport illegal immigrants by car from Lérida to Toulouse.

They were either dropped off in front of the Matabiau station, or taken care of for some time by the network, for a fee.



Five of the arrested protagonists were indicted and remanded in custody.

“The two already imprisoned […] will also be indicted very soon, say the authorities.

While the last two accused, being abroad, will quickly be the subject of an arrest warrant”.

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  • Investigation

  • Migrants

  • Toulouse

  • Occitania

  • Spain

  • Miscellaneous facts

  • Algeria