“The world’s most wanted human trafficker” has been caught and arrested. Who is Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced on Thursday the arrest in Sudan of “the most wanted human trafficker” in the world, as part of an international operation by the Police together with Interpol, according to AFP.

Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam, targeted by two red alerts issued by Interpol, was the head of a criminal network that kidnapped and defrauded hundreds of migrants from East Africa who wanted to reach Europe, the UAE Ministry of Interior and Interpol reported.

The man, a citizen of Eritrea, was arrested in Ethiopia in 2020, but escaped from prison a year later and was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment, states the same joint statement, writes Agerpres, citing AFP.

With the support of Interpol, the United Arab Emirates opened an investigation into Habtemariam’s network and the illegal financial transactions carried out by his brother.

“We put an end to one of the most important axes of human trafficking to Europe”

The investigators succeeded in locating the trafficker in Sudan, where he was detained on January 1 by the local police, in cooperation with the Emirates authorities, Said Abdoullah Al-Souwaidi, a senior official in the Ministry of Interior, announced in a press conference.

• “The most wanted human trafficker in the world will no longer be able to commit his reprehensible acts.
• We put an end to one of the most important axes of human trafficking to Europe, which affects thousands of migrants coming from Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan, via Libya to Europe”, said the quoted official.

Stephen Kavanagh, director of police services at Interpol, confirmed that the trafficker was “the most wanted criminal” in the Netherlands, Ethiopia, and several other countries. Authorities in the UAE, Ethiopia, the Netherlands and Sudan played “a crucial role” in the investigation, he said in a statement.

Habtemariam’s arrest “is proof of the strength of the Interpol network and what can be achieved when states work together,” he emphasized.