The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced the arrest in Sudan of the „world’s most wanted” human trafficker, as part of an international police operation undertaken together with Interpol, AFP informs, Agerpres reads.

Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam, targeted by two red alerts issued by Interpol, was the head of a criminal network that kidnapped and defrauded hundreds of migrants from East Africa who wanted to reach Europe, the UAE Ministry of Interior and Interpol said.

The man, a citizen of Eritrea, had been arrested in Ethiopia in 2020, but escaped from prison a year later and was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment, the same joint statement states.

With the support of Interpol, the UAE opened an investigation into Habtemariam’s network and the illegal financial transactions carried out by his brother.

The investigators succeeded in locating the trafficker in Sudan, where he was arrested on January 1 by local police, in cooperation with the Emirates authorities, Said Abdoullah Al-Souwaidi, a senior official in the Ministry of Interior, announced in a press conference.

„The most wanted human trafficker in the world will no longer be able to commit his reprehensible acts,” he assured. „We put an end to one of the most important axes of human trafficking to Europe, which affects thousands of migrants coming from Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan, via Libya to Europe,” Al-Souwaidi added.

Stephen Kavanagh, director of police services in Interpol, confirmed that the trafficker was the „most wanted” criminal in the Netherlands, in Ethiopia, but also in several other countries. Authorities in the UAE, Ethiopia, the Netherlands and Sudan played a ‘crucial role’ in the investigation, he hailed in a statement.

The arrest of Habtemariam „is proof” of the strength of the Interpol network and „of what can be achieved when states work together”, he emphasized.

Agerpres