Europe's migrant crisis was caused by the Turkish mafia, most likely acting in cohort with Turkish intelligence agencies and therefore the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to French Court of Audit member and former diplomat Roland Hureaux.
According to Hureaux, the actual Syrian refugees do not have the means to come to Europe because they largely live in poverty in camps on the Turkish border. Instead, Europe is being flooded by migrants with means, he said.
"They pass through Lebanon and are flying to the west coast of Turkey, then by boat. It costs them between 5,000 and 10,000 euros, which means that they do have money. All this is organized by the Turkish mafia, in almost certain complicity with the Turkish secret service and therefore the government of Erdogan," Hureaux told Atlantico.
"This philosophy reigns at the highest level: the Davos summit, the IMF, the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] are bursting with reports to show that this wave of migrants was a great economic opportunity for Europe," Hureaux said.
This thinking, according to Hureaux, has allowed Turkey to benefit from enabling the migrant crisis by receiving grants thanks to its status as a country attempting to join the EU, as it would not receive money to keep migrants from leaving the country if it was already an EU member.
