By: Yusuf M Hasan
Somalilandsun – A major international Human trafficking network run by Yasin Mahi Ma’alin has been dismantled after Somaliland police arrested a man suspected of being the Horn Africa coordinator.
The detained a 42 years old man named Hasan Yusuf Ali is said to be the coordinator of the international gang of human traffickers that is known to be controlled from Europe by Mr. Yasin Mahi Ma’alin a Swedish citizen of Somali origin.
Under direction of the Sweden based Human Trafficking king pin and under the able support of a crafted documents forger from Morocco the detained has facilitated the illegal and sometimes fateful migration of thousands of mostly youths from Somalia and more recently Somaliland.
According to a senior police official who requested anonymity the human trafficker was nabbed during an earlier morning raid at a house in Hargeisa following surveillance that came as a result of information of suspicious activities reported by neighbours to police.
“While we are even planning to charge the suspect with not only human trafficking offences but murder as well his boss in Sweden had the guts to offer bribery to police as a means of release” said the officer
The in custody network coordinator who is reported to have been involved in the trafficking of hundreds if not thousands of youths to various destinations in Europe over an eight year period is also suspected of being behind the recent deaths of eight young boys from Burao.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that Somaliland police are in contact with law enforcement agencies from various European countries as a follow up to leads supplied by the human Trafficker in detention
The gallant Somaliland law enforcement agencies ill equipped and paid have continued to excel where internationally funded, equipped and trained counterparts have failed miserably especially as pertains to the global menaces of human trafficking and piracy.
The lucrative human trafficking trade which accrues millions in dollars annually is effected through the supply of fake European country’s travel documents which are then sold to the unsuspecting youths who pay large amounts to the tune of $20,000 inclusive of leaky boat passage to Lampedusa in Italy.
Just the other day a tragic shipwreck took place between Sicily and Lampedusa, in which at least 111 migrants died and over 200 are still missing many of whom were fleeing war and persecution in countries including Somalia and Eritrea in hopes of finding a better life.
“They ended up entrusting their lives to human smugglers, risking everything aboard an unseaworthy boat that caught fire, capsized and sank at night. Entire families drowned” said IOM Director General William Lacy Swing in a message of condolences on Friday
Despite the excellent work of the Italian coast guard and port authorities, who have saved thousands of lives in the Mediterranean over the past two decades, at least 20,000 people have died since 1993.
