Dominique BottiOliver Zihlmann 18.09.2016

 

 

 

Andemeskel Y. sits in jail in Sicily. It threatens him to years of imprisonment for organised crime and trafficking in human beings. From his intercepted phone conversations, it is clear that he infiltrated probably hundreds of refugees against money to Northern Italy and in the Switzerland. He belonged to one of the largest gangs in Europe. He was paid regularly from the Switzerland.

 

A lady from the canton of Zurich, recalls how she received a call from a relative from Milan one day. He was in distress, he need money urgently. «The relatives gave through the details of Mr Andemeskel Y., because he himself could receive no money», says the Lady. "I didn't know who that is, but I wanted to help. I triggered the payment via PostFinance Internet banking.» Was sent the money via Western Union.

 

An African in La-Chaux-de-Fonds paid for a relative in need via MoneyGram. "I even said that it was for a tug named Margaret H.", he says.

 

 

An Eritreans from the canton of Vaud finally tells how his wife one day received a call from her cousin. «He had landed just after a horror ride across the Mediterranean Sea in Sicily. He was hungry, he was cold, and he had no roof over their heads.» You have been instructed to pay 200 euros to a woman named Afomia E.. For this, they went to a switch by Western Union.

 

Afomia E. now also behind bars. She oversaw a house in Catania, where the tug gang penned up to 117 refugees and extorted money. Partly, people had to sleep standing up. Was paid in this case even indirectly by the Swiss social assistance Afomia E., because the Eritrean family in the canton of Vaud saved themselves the 200 euro from their 1800 francs from social assistance.

 

 

In recent months, Italian investigators studied the accounts of 47 suspected smugglers, who all sit in jail. It turned out: the asylum seekers were in the millions. Within a few months, they were proven to be 1 '075' 400 euro. Of them were 131'000 via the MoneyGram transfer service and 86'000 via Western Union.

 

"This is only a part of their income," says Calogero Ferrara, Deputy Public Prosecutor of Palermo. «They deserve much more.» Usually, the tug require amounts of 150 to 300 euros a person including the illegally ship them from Sicily to Rome. But the refugees are usually no money on himself.

 

Ask so friends and relatives in the North of Europe to pay the money directly to your tractor. No money, they get stuck. This can quickly lead to dramatic situations, according to many Eritreans in the Switzerland are willing to follow the cries for help from Italy.

 

 

The hundreds of thousands of euros, which occupy the tug, so countless small single payments consist of, coming mainly from relatives from North and Central Europe. To show how this money together, prosecutors in Palermo of exemplarily 188 such micro payments about 200 to 300 Euro released 17 of them came from Africans in Switzerland, including the two transfers to Andemeskel Y and Afomia E. How much total flows from Switzerland into the pockets of the tug, can be hardly estimate.

 

To pay for a tug from the Switzerland, is not per se illegal. «The money comes in this case not a crime, but the normal balances of local Africans», explains David Zollinger, lawyers and compliance experts. He analysed many cases of sensitive payments via Western Union and MoneyGram in his previous occupation as a business attorney in Zurich. "The criminal activity follows only after the money transfer in Italy and often without specific knowledge of the sender, so that the payments from the Switzerland do not comply with the money laundering offence."

 

The transfer of such small sums are not only legal, they take place completely under the radar of monitoring. The SBB accept Union at 180 stations of money transfers as an agent of Western. "We identify the sender of the money with a copy of the identity and check whether the money might have an illegal origin," explains Monika Selinger, responsible for legal and compliance at the SBB. «Computer systems sound the alarm when suspicious payment patterns, and the 1800 employees are trained every year.»

 

The problem: The money laundering Ordinance provides only a clarification mandatory at transfer from 5,000 francs. Inspections under this amount will only be made if evidence that the money came from an illegal source. However, in the case of tug has neither the money a criminal origin, is still suspicious of the transmitter. Indeed, the payments to the tug from the Switzerland completely unhindered, and virtually no one can do, however, run.

 

The consequences are serious. The money from the Switzerland are used not only for the financing of organised crime, they inevitably also ensure that more asylum seekers illegally entering the Switzerland - with enormous financial consequences for the Swiss asylum and later for social assistance.

 

 

Western Union stressed vigorously to tackle the abuse of their services by traffickers and traffickers in human beings. «Every fifth employee at our works in the monitoring of transactions», writes the company on request. «We invest extensively in programs that help to expose the machinations of people smugglers.» In addition, it cooperated with the police. MoneyGram did not respond to our requests.

 

Offended, the banks respond also because they earn through the abuse of their service on the payments for the tug even on the basis of commissions. The same applies to their agents in Switzerland SBB or the company Valora, which receives funds for MoneyGram at the kiosk. Valora stressed to do everything humanly possible against such abuses.

 

The post no longer offers Union switch transfers via Western since 2008 for risk reasons. Transmitter and receiver would still once separately checked for transfers from online banking, the company aligns. The transaction will rejected for irregularities. That did not help but pay at Andemeskel Y..

 

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