January 02, 2015

New twist on people-smuggling: The smugglers abandon them in large ships, mid-ocean.

The ship in the photo is being towed to an Italian port.  It was loaded with 450 Syrians and Kurds, who paid smugglers to make the run.


The smugglers had a novel plan:  They abandoned the vessel a few hundred miles offshore, leaving it adrift.  One of the passengers used the ship's radio to call for help, and an Icelandic coast guard ship working for the EU made the rescue.

Why is this newsworthy?  Because this was the fifth ship abandoned and rescued by this same Icelandic coast guard vessel in the past month.  Other abandoned ships carried as many as 900 passengers.

Short answer: the bad guys have found that the EU can be depended on to rescue their clients and to allow them to stay in whatever EU nation they landed.  It's a money-making machine for the bad guys.  And like all successful schemes, you can count on seeing this repeated endlessly, as long as it keeps working.

Oh NO, I hear liberals saying:  This can't be true!  Abandoning a whole big ship would cost far more than smugglers could hope to make, even at $2000 per person!

Well let's see here: The ship in the pic was built 50 years ago.  It was used to transport livestock.  It's amazing that it's still afloat, and it's likely the bad guys could have bought it for under $200,000.

The potential profit is substantial.

Cowbirds.


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