Instead of selling phoney asylum seekers seats on a potentially rickety boat to Australia they now have an air route and fake visas for them.
Iraqis are running the operation!
Before I get to the story, I see there is news this morning that more Rohingya have been caught in Indonesia headed for a another of those boat crossings. Indonesia is a Muslim country, so why aren’t the Rohingya satisfied to break in there and stay in their own culture zone, why Australia? (silly question!)
Where the heck are these destitute “refugees” getting $16,000 to pay for a ticket? From 9News:
People smugglers are selling asylum seekers passports and Australian visas for entry to the country by plane – offering them an alternative to a potentially deadly boat journey.
The ABC’s Four Corners reported that it secretly filmed people smuggler Abu Tarek in Malaysia talking about the deal.
The Iraqi man tells a potential customer that for $16,000 they get a passport with an Australia visa.
“The passport is from Oman or Bahrain, they get the Bahrain passport with the Australia visa in it, both official – not fake,” he said in a conversational secretly recorded by the ABC’s Four Corners.
“They use the passport to fly there and when they arrive safely, they tear it up and enter the country (Australia).”
He tells the person that when they enter the country they can then apply for refugee status.
His business partner Abu Saleh, also from Iraq, is accused of running his people smuggling business from an Indonesian prison with the help of corrupt prison officials.
One asylum seeker who dealt with him while he was in prison said he was “like a king”.
The photo is from a much more detailed story (found after beginning this post) about this illegal operation at ABC News Australia. Some of the flights are to New Zealand as well.