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German police carried out sweeping pre-dawn raids Wednesday targeting an alleged Iraqi-Kurdish criminal network accused of smuggling migrants by boat from France to Britain.

More than 500 officers searched locations in multiple western German cities in an operation coordinated with Europol and French security services, police said.

The network is accused of the "smuggling of irregular migrants from the Middle East and East Africa to France and the UK using low-quality inflatable boats", German police said in a statement.

Police searched residential properties and storage facilities based on search and arrest warrants issued by a French court in Lille, the police said.

The raids targeted properties in Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Grevenbroich, Bochum, and other cities, including a refugee home in Essen, Germany's Bild newspaper reported.

Over 20 French investigators and three Europol officials were assisting, police said.

Police did not immediately provide details on arrests, but Interior Minister Nancy Faeser hailed what she called a "hard blow against the brutal international smuggling of migrants".

"Gangs that use threats and violence to cram people into small boats and send them across the Channel are putting human lives at risk," she said in a statement.

"We will continue to take tough action against this unscrupulous trade in human misery."

The French interior ministry said a months-long investigation had found that the network also included Syrian suspects and had organised the illicit transport of at least 300 boats for Channel crossings this year.

It added that, in total, 72 people have died during perilous Channel crossings since the beginning of 2024.

The raids follow an investigation by Belgian, French and German authorities into another Iraqi-Kurdish smuggling network that led to 19 arrests earlier this year.

The suspects, all based in Germany, organised the purchase, storage and transport of inflatable boats to smuggle migrants from beaches near the French city of Calais to Britain, The Hague-based Europol said.

Migrant smuggling via small boats has been on the rise since 2019, and two years later, it overtook the practice of hiding people in the back of lorries.

Last year, around 30,000 migrants and 600 boats reached Britain, according to Europol.