The New York Times has again shed light on the involvement of the Italian warship “Caprera” in smuggling goods to Europe, during its period of rescuing migrants off the coast of Libya.
The newspaper revealed, in a report entitled “the ship that stopped 7000 immigrants and smuggled 700,000 cigarettes”; Caprera sailors bought cigarettes in Libya when they were anchored in Tripoli in January 2018.
The ship returned to its base in southern Italy in July 2018, after it managed to intercept more than 80 boats for smuggling migrants off the coast of Libya, and stopped more than 7,000 people from crossing to Europe.
However, the shock was during the search of the ship on the day it returned home; When the Italian Financial Police found about 700,000 smuggled cigarettes, in addition to a shipment of smuggled medicine.
The newspaper says that the smuggled goods discovered at the time were purchased when the “Caprera” docked in Tripoli from March to July 2018 as part of the mission to combat people smuggling by the Italian Navy.
The newspaper quoted the police officer who led the investigation, “Gabriel Gargano”, expressing his shock at what he saw during the inspection, saying: “I have seen a lot of smuggling operations – but 70 bags of cigarettes on board a military ship? I haven’t seen that in my whole life.”
“The New York Times” revealed that it had seen invoices showing that Caprera sailors had bought cigarettes in Libya in cooperation with the crew of the Italian “Capri” ship, which was docked in Tripoli in January 2018, and had seen court documents confirming the raid on a third warship in Naples in May. It is suspected that it has participated in the mission.
A trial is now taking place in Brindisi; where five sailors were accused of being involved in the smuggling process, but the investigation expanded beyond “Caprera” to include two other ships.
