Europe's biggest people smuggling ring has been broken up in Turkey, according to the country's police.

It is thought that the ring helped thousands of people to cross illegally into Europe.

The leader of the group, known as Akbar Omar Tawfeeq, was among 20 people detained by police in four Turkish provinces after a year-long investigation.

Police say the network helped people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq cross into Europe via Turkey, also working with groups in Ukraine, Greece and Italy.

Image: Turkish police also found cash and electronic devices during their raids

In a statement, police said they detained 569 migrants as part of the operation, and seized six vehicles and six boats.


They added that the smugglers were mostly from northern Iraq and earned around €2m (£1,763,943) a year.

It is thought that the organisation charged between €3,000 and €5,000 (£2,645 - £4,410) for each person who made the dangerous crossings.

Turkish police also released video footage showing officers breaking down the door of a suspect's house and seizing phones, drugs and digital material.

Footage also showed passports being seized and people being put into police vans.

A prosecutor in Istanbul said that the ringleader, Tawfeeq, even obtained a Dominican Republic passport, with a view to expanding operations there.

Image: Migrants from Afghanistan pictured after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey last year

More than a million people, many of them fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, arrived on European shores in 2015, with Turkey being one of the launching points for the sea journey, during which thousands of people died.

Numbers fell dramatically in 2016 following a crackdown in Turkey.

By 2017, only 172,300 people made the journey, according to the United Nations.