22 alive taken by criminal gang

By Sunahwar Ali

Let me be clear: the 22 souls who perished in the Mediterranean were not victims of a tragic accident. They were victims of a criminal conspiracy.
And until we identify, prosecute, and punish every single individual and gang involved in this filthy trade—from the recruiters in Sylhet and Dhaka to the smugglers in Libya and the facilitators here in London—these deaths will continue. We cannot allow these criminals to hide behind the complexity of international borders.

The Price of a Life
We know how this works. In the villages of Sylhet, in the streets of Dhaka, and in the cramped flats of East London, there are individuals—often known to the community—who present themselves as travel agents, “helpers,” or brokers. They approach desperate families. They promise a better life in Europe. They show photographs of successful crossings. And they demand money.
Not small sums. Huge sums. Families sell their land. They take out loans at crippling interest rates. They drain generations of savings. A single journey can cost anywhere from £10,000 to £20,000 per person. Multiply that by the dozens of people packed onto a rubber boat, and you begin to understand the scale of the criminal enterprise we are dealing with.
The survivors of the Crete tragedy paid that money. They trusted these criminals with their lives. And what did they receive in return?
A six-day nightmare without food or water.
A rubber boat that was never seaworthy.
And, according to survivors, an order from the traffickers to throw the bodies of the dead into the sea to destroy the evidence.

This is not human trafficking.
This is organised murder.

The Network of Criminals
When we talk about punishment, we must understand that this is not the work of a single individual. It is a network. There are multiple layers of criminality:

1. The Recruiters: Based in Bangladesh—in Sylhet, Dhaka, and other regions—these individuals identify vulnerable families, make false promises, and collect the money. They often present themselves as legitimate businessmen. They are the root of the evil.
2. The Facilitators: Based in London, Birmingham, and other UK cities with large diaspora populations, these individuals receive money transfers, arrange travel documents (often forged), and connect families with the international smuggling rings. They may appear respectable in our communities, but they are complicit in murder.
3. The Smugglers: Based in Libya, Turkey, and Greece, these are the ones who pack human beings into unseaworthy vessels and push them into open water. They often operate with impunity, sometimes in collaboration with corrupt local officials. In the Crete incident, two South Sudanese nationals have been arrested, but we know they are just the tip of the iceberg.
4. The Corrupt Enablers:
These are the officials—in Libya, in transit countries, and sometimes even in Europe—who take bribes to look the other way. They allow the smuggling routes to remain open. They are accessories to every death that occurs on these routes.

Punishment Must Be Swift and Severe
I have spent my career campaigning against injustice and corruption.
I have seen how the powerful exploit the powerless. But few things disgust me more than those who profit from the desperation of their own people.

The survivors of this tragedy must be protected and given the opportunity to testify. Every piece of evidence—every bank transfer, every phone number, every name—must be pursued relentlessly.

I call upon:
·The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and UK law enforcement: Investigate the diaspora networks in London, Birmingham, and other cities that are facilitating these journeys. Seize their assets. Prosecute them for manslaughter, not just immigration offences. If someone takes £20,000 to put a person on a boat that sinks, they are guilty of murder.
·The Bangladeshi government: You cannot continue to ignore the brokers operating openly in Sylhet and Dhaka. These individuals are known in their communities. They flaunt their wealth—wealth built on the suffering of others. Arrest them. Freeze their bank accounts. Dismantle these networks at the source. Issue travel bans on known facilitators. Cooperate fully with Interpol and European authorities.
·The Greek and Libyan authorities: The two suspects arrested in Greece must face the full weight of the law. But we must also investigate the Libyan end of this route. Who allowed this boat to depart from Tobruk? Who provided the fuel, the boat, the directions? These are not victimless crimes. These are homicides.

A Message to the Gangs
Let me speak directly to those who are reading this—whether in a cafe in Brick Lane, a office in Dhaka, or a village in Sylhet—who are involved in this trade:
You know who you are. You know the families you have destroyed. You know the money you have taken from people who could not afford to lose it. And now, you know that 22 people have died because of your greed. More will die if you are not stopped.

You are not businessmen.
You are not helpers.
You are murderers. And you will be held accountable. The communities you prey upon are waking up.
Law enforcement is beginning to cooperate across borders. Your days of hiding behind respectability are numbered.

Justice for the Victims
The 22 people who died on that boat will never return to their families.
The 21 Bangladeshi survivors will carry the trauma of watching their fellow travellers die and being ordered to throw bodies into the sea. Their nightmares will never end.

But we can offer them one thing: justice.
Justice means identifying every individual and gang involved in this conspiracy and punishing them to the fullest extent of the law. Justice means seizing the profits they made from this suffering. Justice means ensuring that no other family has to bury their dreams—and their loved ones—at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

I will not rest until those responsible face justice. From London to Sylhet to Dhaka, I will continue to raise my voice. And I call on every member of our community to do the same.
Do not remain silent.
If you know someone who is facilitating these journeys, report them. If you know a family that is being exploited, warn them. Silence is complicity. And complicity is death.

Sunahwar Ali is a former Chief Whip of Tower Hamlets Council and a long-time campaigner for anti-racism, anti-injustice, and anti-corruption in the UK and globally.