Several migrants from Afghanistan have complained of fraud and extortion by human smugglers along the Iran-to-Türkiye route. They say smugglers use a variety of promises to lure young people from Afghanistan into migrating to Türkiye via Iran, charging between $4,000 and $5,000 per person for the journey. According to these migrants, however, smugglers abandon some of them in the deserts of Iran instead of taking them to their destination, and pretend that they have reached Turkish territory.
The migrants add that smugglers hand some of them over to hostage-taking groups, where they face torture, beatings, and death threats. They say the hostage-takers demand money from the migrants’ families for their release and warn that they will kill the migrants if the money is not paid. According to their claims, several Iranian citizens, in cooperation with some migrants from Afghanistan living in Iran, are involved in these fraud schemes and acts of hostage-taking. They urge young people from Afghanistan not to fall for the smugglers’ promises and not to risk their lives and property on illegal migration routes.
Ali, a migrant from Afghanistan living in Iran, describes the rise in fraud and extortion targeting migrants on the Iran-to-Türkiye route as alarming. He says young people leave the country because of poverty and unemployment, but along the migration route they fall prey to human smugglers and hostage-taking groups. According to him, these people take money from migrants with the promise of getting them to Türkiye, then hand them over to hostage-takers, paving the way for the extortion of their families.
The young man tells the Hasht-e Subh Daily about his experience on the route: “I set out from Tehran with one of my friends to go to Türkiye. After much difficulty, we found someone who introduced us to a smuggler. The smuggler promised many times to get us to Türkiye. We agreed to pay the smuggler $4,000 after reaching Istanbul. But when we reached the border areas, the smuggler handed us over to hostage-takers. They beat and tortured us, and contacted our families, threatening that they would not let us live if our families did not send money. Eventually, when they saw that they could not get any money out of us, they took our belongings, beat us, and abandoned us in the deserts of Iran.”
Shafi Jan, another migrant from Afghanistan living in Iran, says he set out on the migration route with the promise of finding work and being taken to Türkiye, but after crossing the border he was arrested and beaten. According to him, some migrants who are deported from Türkiye also encounter people on the way back to Tehran who demand money to take them there.
The migrant describes his experience as follows: “The smugglers tell us to get in a car in Tehran and say they will find us work once we reach their dormitory. But after crossing the border, Turkish police arrest us. They beat me, hitting me with rifle butts, belts, and sticks. They beat others as well, so badly that their hands, feet, and noses were injured. Some migrants also suffer serious injuries. When we are deported from Türkiye, on the way back to Tehran we run into thieves and people who demand money to take us to Tehran. Our income in Iran is only enough to cover our own daily expenses, and we can no longer send money to our families.”
Shafi Jan stresses that young people should learn about the dangers of the route before traveling and should not trust the smugglers’ promises without verifying them.
Shokrullah, another migrant from Afghanistan living in Iran, says the smuggler had promised him and his companions that getting them to Türkiye would be easy, but crossing the border turned into a perilous experience for them.
Teary-eyed, the young man recounts his story: “The smuggler promised us that getting us to Türkiye would be a piece of cake, and asked us to pay in advance. We lived for about two weeks in a very run-down house. Dust and debris kept falling from the ceiling while we slept and when we woke up. Finally, they took us to the foot of a wall about 25 meters high and told us to jump. After we crossed, the police noticed us, arrested us, and beat us so severely that I could not walk. In the end, I returned to Iran and had to start my life over from scratch.”
Shokrullah adds that a family he knows also sold their house and property to go to Türkiye, but they are still waiting to be taken across and risk losing all of their money. He says: “Going illegally is a matter of life and death. You don’t know the way, and you don’t speak the language. You lose your money, and you may not reach your destination either.”
Türkiye is one of the transit countries for migrants from Afghanistan seeking to reach Europe. However, the detention of undocumented migrants and deadly incidents along migration routes point to the dangers they face.
According to statistics from the Turkish Ministry of Interior, a total of 30,380 undocumented migrants were detained in the country from the beginning of January to March 26, 2026, of whom 9,237 were from Afghanistan.
In another incident, 19 migrants from Afghanistan, including an infant, died after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of Bodrum.
These statistics and incidents, alongside the migrants’ accounts of fraud, extortion, and violence, highlight the dangers of migration routes. The migrants urge young people from Afghanistan to learn about the dangers of this route before deciding to travel, and not to entrust their lives and property to the promises of smugglers.
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
مسیر دشوار مهاجرت؛ روایتهای تکاندهنده جوانانی که طعمه قاچاقبران انسان میشوند
