Luxury sailboats used to smuggle migrants to Italy

Officials in Italy are seeing a sharp increase in the number of migrant crossings using a lesser-known smuggling route from Turkey to the southern Italian region of Calabria. Entire families of wealthier Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds are paying top price for passage from Turkey aboard new or nearly new sailboats that can more easily avoid detection by authorities.

Investigators say they are captained by smugglers, often Ukrainians. According to the UN refugee agency, 9,687 migrants and refugees had arrived in Calabria by mid-November, almost four times as many as in the same period last year.