They dismantle a migrant traffic network between Spain and France

A network of migrant traffickers who used small mountain routes between France and Spain was dismantled, with 15 people involved and about 600 registered tickets, the French authorities announced on Friday.

The migrants, mostly Algerians or from sub -Saharan Africa, were «served» in Catalonia, near the border, and took them to Perpignan, or even further in France or Germany, explained the prosecutor of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone.

Each trip cost between 150 and 300 euros (160-325 dollars), rates that do not represent «considerable amounts» taking into account the «very strong competition between traffickers’ networks,» added the prosecutor of the French city.

Border police investigators estimate that 1,700 migrants crossed the border in the last two years in at least 570 car tickets.

About 70 officials were mobilized on Sunday on both sides of the border. A total of 15 men are being prosecuted in this case, with cells in Spain, Perpiñán and Marseille.

Five people from Algerian and Moroccan nationalities were arrested in Spain and will be transferred to France within 10 days. Four others were arrested in Perpignan and six in Marseille.

The Marseille cell also created a «clandestine migrant transport network» by sea. The authorities seized a vessel 8.5 meters long, aimed at transporting migrants from Mostaganem in Algeria to Murcia on the Spanish coast.

«This type of dismantling of such an organized network is quite rare, because the entire structure has really been dismantled here, with all intermediaries,» said Commissioner Laurène Capelle, head of the Interdepartmental Service of the Border Police.

AFP