Spain: Police Break Up Smuggling Ring

The Spanish police said Tuesday that they had arrested 22 people and broken up a ring accused of smuggling people from Iran to Britain, often via flights from the Canary Islands. The police said that the traffickers also used an overland route, with people hidden in the luggage holds of buses or in freight containers on trucks. The ringleader and most members of the group were Iranian. Others were from Colombia, Morocco, Mauritania and Bulgaria. The police said that the ring charged Iranians $26,000 per person but that it was not clear how many people the ring had sneaked into Britain.