Poland charges 36 gang members with smuggling migrants and financing terrorism

Poland has charged 36 members of a gang allegedly responsible for smuggling thousands of migrants across the border from Belarus and onwards to Germany and for financing terrorism.

Preliminary findings indicate that at least $30 million from the operation was used to finance terrorism, including through cryptocurrency accounts linked to Hezbollah and Palestinian Jihad.

“The group includes Polish, Ukrainian, Iraqi and Belarusian citizens,” Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office announced on Tuesday, adding that it had worked with agencies from Lithuania, Germany and the Netherlands on the investigation.

According to Poland’s border guard, the group, which included over 50 members in total, is believed to have made nearly $600 million between March 2021 and November 2023 from smuggling 3,500 people, who were nationals of, among others, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Since 2021, Poland has experienced a crisis on its border with Belarus, where tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers – mostly from Asia, Africa and the Middle East – have tried to cross into the European Union with the encouragement and assistance of the Belarusian authorities.

In the course of their investigation, Polish prosecutors established that the person responsible for organising border crossings and hiring couriers to transport people onwards to Germany was a German resident, who can be only named as Ahmad R. under Polish privacy law.

He was known in the group under the pseudonym Abu Noh. Ahmad R. acted in cooperation with a man called Mohammed A., alias Abu Josef.

“Subsequently, cyber reconnaissance was conducted, identifying seven cryptocurrency wallet numbers belonging to Ahmad R.,” said the Polish prosecutors.

“Cryptocurrency analysis was able to link the accounts in question to clusters identified on the Israeli Ministry of Defense website as Hezbollah and Palestinian Jihad accounts,” they added.

The preliminary findings indicate that no less than $30 million in terrorist funding was transferred through cryptocurrency wallets.

“Funds were also transferred to an institution identified as ‘Buy Cash and Money Transfer’, which is under sanctions by the US Treasury. The total of transfers to the above service was more than $13 million,” said prosecutors.

Additionally, investigators determined that one of the wallets belonged to another of the suspects in the case, Mohamed K., a close associate of Ahmad R.

“Preliminary analysis of the identified wallets indicates that since 2021 approximately $581 million has flowed through the wallets in question,” said prosecutors.

Ahmad R. was arrested under a European Arrest Warrant on 23 April. During his detention, significant amounts of cash and jewellery were secured.

He is now charged with leading an organised criminal group, organising illegal border crossings in contravention of the law, and financing terrorism, for which he could face up to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors brought similar charges against Mohammed K.

So far, investigators have established that 51 people were involved in the group. According to information the Polish border guards provided, the man in overall charge of the operation was a 33-year-old Syrian. He is believed to have earned at least €1.67 million from smuggling people over the border.

In response to the surge in irregular crossings of the border from Belarus – which Polish and EU authorities have described as a “hybrid attack” – Poland has constructed a barrier made up of both physical fencing and electronic surveillance systems.

However, attempted crossings have continued nevertheless, with a report from the Polish border guard indicating that over twice as many migrants were detected by the authorities in Poland in 2023 than in the same period of 2022.

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Main image credit: Straż Graniczna

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.