Police in Ethiopia have arrested a man accused of running a multi-million-dollar international human trafficking operation that has lured thousands of people to Libya since 2018, where many were tortured and held for ransom while hoping to reach Europe.
Yetbarek Dawit was detained along with nine alleged accomplices in the northern town of Shire, in the Tigray region bordering Eritrea and Sudan. The ten suspects were subsequently transferred to the capital, Addis Ababa. None have yet been charged in court, and Yetbarek has not commented on the allegations.
The scale of the alleged operation is significant. Police say the network transported more than 3,000 mainly young people from Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan to Libya using various routes. Once there, victims were allegedly held in five detention warehouses operated by Yetbarek, where they were tortured and forced to contact their families to send additional money. Those who could not pay were given food only once a day and subjected to extreme physical abuse, including beatings with rubber, sticks and electric wires, being chained by their hands and feet, and having melted plastic dripped on their bodies. Women were allegedly subjected to sexual violence, resulting in severe physical and psychological injuries.
Testimonies gathered from more than 100 alleged victims and their families — living in Ethiopia, Libya, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK and Canada — helped build the case. Police say the network is believed to have been involved in the deaths of more than 100 people and the sexual abuse of more than 50 women, and to have generated more than $19 million through its criminal activities. Bank accounts have been frozen and properties confiscated.
Yetbarek is said to operate under multiple aliases across different countries — known as Adhanom in Sudan, Ahmed in Djibouti and Somalia, Munir in Kenya, and Kibrom in Sweden and other European countries. Investigators used advanced technology and those names to track him down.
The arrests were the result of a cross-border investigation coordinated through the Regional Operational Centre — known as Rock — an organisation established to tackle smuggling networks in East Africa and funded by the European Union.
