Judgments | A family of six paid smugglers more than 30,000 euros to get to Finland

Iraqi the family paid smugglers thousands of dollars to get to Finland.

The family’s journey to Finland began by crossing the border to Turkey in September 2022. From there, they traveled towards Central Europe through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovakia until they reached Germany.

A family of six moved between countries with the help of smugglers. They traveled by car, boat and on foot, according to the judgment of the Helsinki district court.

The verdict does not state the reasons why the family had left Iraq and why they had ended up using smugglers. However, this did not come cheap, as the trip from Iraq to Finland cost the family a total of 30,000 US dollars.

The money was paid through an office in Turkey called Ahl Alsham.

For months after making the trip, the last leg of the trip started from Lübeck, Germany, to Finland in December.

The family had dealt with a different smuggler in each country, including in Germany. An unknown man had taken the family to the port of Lübeck. However, the situation in the port was uncertain. The mother of the family told the court that she cried and asked the man to help them.

In the end, the man had agreed and left on the ship with the family’s three children, who were traveling with false passports. The mother and the fourth child hid in a car that was driven inside the ship. For some reason, the father of the family stayed in Germany for a few more days, after which the smuggler returned to pick up the father on the ship to Finland as well.

Moving from Germany to Finland alone cost the family $7,000.

Judgment it is not clear how the authorities got to the smuggler’s buttocks. Several people were involved in the family’s smuggling along the way, but in the Helsinki district court, the man who transported the family members by ship from Germany to Finland answered the charges.

In court, the accused denied his guilt and said that he had been forced to transport the family to Finland. The court did not find the man’s version of events credible. The message conversations brought up in the preliminary investigation connected the accused with, among other things, the contact person of the money brokerage office. The court found that the accused participated in smuggling as part of an international organized crime group whose purpose is to bring people illegally to Europe.

The Helsinki District Court sentenced the Swede Assi Alassin to a prison sentence of two years and two months for organizing aggravated illegal immigration.