A plane with 303 Indian passengers held since Thursday at an airport near Paris due to suspicions of a massive case of human trafficking took off this Monday heading to Bombay (India), French authorities indicated.
The plane, an Airbus 340 of the Romanian company Legend Airlines, which was going from the United Arab Emirates to Nicaragua, was blocked on Thursday during a stopover to refuel at Vatry airport and departed on Monday shortly before 3:00 p.m. local time (2:00 p.m. GMT). ) with 276 of the 303 passengers initially on board.
Of the initial contingent, 25 requested asylum in France and two were held for interrogation, although they were released shortly after, judicial sources reported.
The plane was detained due to an anonymous complaint that the passengers were victims of a human trafficking network.
A source close to the investigation indicated that they were probably Indian workers in the Emirates who were seeking to reach Central America to try to go from there to the north and enter the United States or Canada irregularly.
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During the investigation, the passengers remained at that airport 150 km east of Paris, in areas set up by civil protection services, with individual beds, bathrooms and showers.