Shadow payment system on rise among European people smugglers

FILE PHOTO: Kurdish migrants sit at a makeshift camp in Loon-Plage near Dunkirk, France, November 29, 2021. REUTERS/Juan Medina

DUNKIRK, France (Reuters) - When Kaiwan Hussein, a 26-year-old from Iraqi Kurdistan, arrived in Germany on Nov. 23 after he slipped across the European Union border from Belarus, he sent a one-word WhatsApp message to his brother back home saying “OK.”

That was a signal for the family to authorise the release of a $3,500 payment to a smuggler contact, who Hussein knew only by the nickname ‘Nato,’ that was being held in a money transfer shop in his hometown of Ranya.