Iuventa

How to get away with organized crime

You’ve heard the story: ruthless smugglers exploiting vulnerable people, criminal networks flooding Europe’s borders, NGOs acting as a “taxi service” across the Mediterranean.

Here’s the truth: there is organized crime in the Mediterranean. But the people responsible wear suits and uniforms, not life jackets.

In 2016, we took a ship called the Iuventa to sea to rescue people abandoned at Europe’s borders. In one year, we pulled more than 23,000 people from the water. In doing so, we disrupted a system built on deterrence, neglect, and fear.

The response was immediate. Authorities seized our ship, accused us of collaborating with smugglers, and buried us in years of criminal proceedings designed less to prove guilt than to exhaust resistance.

In the end, every defendant walked free. The case collapsed.

But the real scandal was never the prosecution itself. While rescue crews stood trial, thousands of people continued to drown in the Central Mediterranean. European governments deepened cooperation with abusive militias and detention systems in Libya. Those responsible faced no consequences.

This is the story of the Iuventa: the rescue mission, the political campaign that targeted it, and the broader system that criminalized solidarity in order to defend Europe’s border regime.

Image of several hands holding each other on the shoulder

How it all started

In 2015, an unprecedented number of people fleeing war, repression, and economic collapse arrived at Europe’s borders. European leaders insisted the situation could be “managed.” In practice, that meant closing safe routes and pushing migration control beyond Europe’s territory.

In 2016, the EU signed a deal with Turkey aimed at containing people seeking refuge in Europe. At the same time, border states including Italy, Greece, and Spain intensified prosecutions against people on the move, often accusing them of smuggling.

As deaths in the Mediterranean increased and state rescue operations were dismantled, ordinary people stepped in. Activists, medics, sailors, and volunteers launched civilian rescue missions at sea. The Iuventa was one of them.

The backlash began almost immediately.

That same year, the Italian government had formally tasked the country’s anti-mafia and anti-terror agency, the DNAA, with investigating rescue ships. In Sicily, prosecutors were already building their case. Ships and offices were bugged, more than 40 phones were tapped, and undercover officers were deployed. Months later, the operation was ready.

After nearly ten thousand deaths in the Central Mediterranean the previous year, the crisis had become a stage for political profiteering during an election summer. Informants planted on NGO ships reported not only to prosecutors, but also to far-right politicians through private channels.

On 1 August 2017, the Iuventa was lured into the port of Lampedusa. Armed vessels surrounded the ship. The crew was interrogated and the vessel searched. Though nothing incriminating was found, the Iuventa was seized the next day.

Selected material from the investigation was leaked to the press and amplified by politicians. The seizure became a public spectacle: a warning aimed not only at one ship, but at the entire civilian rescue fleet. It helped establish a new political narrative around migration in the Mediterranean: rescuers were no longer portrayed as witnesses to a humanitarian disaster, but as accomplices to it.

We were charged with aiding unauthorized migration. In reality, our offense was exposing the violence and failures of Europe’s border regime.

The Case

After the Iuventa was seized, the public was told it was the smoking gun. Proof that NGOs were running a ferry service for smugglers. Then the headlines faded. What followed was one of the longest, most expensive, and judicially intricate preliminary hearings in Italian legal history.

To reinforce the narrative that events in the Mediterranean were driven by transnational criminal networks, the investigation was placed under the authority of Italy’s anti-Mafia directorate. Four Iuventa crew members – alongside professional seafarers and activists from other NGOs – were charged with “aggravated facilitation of illegal immigration,” an offence carrying a sentence of five to twenty years in prison:

The operation was initially set in motion by accusations from a handful of former police officers dismissed from the force and later employed as private security contractors on rescue ships. Casting themselves as covert investigators, they funnelled their suspicions and conjecture to prosecutors and politicians. One of them, Pietro Gallo, was later caught on a wiretap reflecting on their own role in the policing of search-and-rescue NGOs: “The EU didn’t manage, the government didn’t manage. Then a few idiots like us came along and stopped everything.”

But this was not simply the work of a few opportunists. It became a state operation: prolonged, coordinated, and deliberately opaque. Wiretaps and spyware targeted not only the accused, but also journalists, lawyers, doctors, and priests — an investigation that spiralled into a civil liberties scandal of extraordinary magnitude. The Iuventa crew had their computers cloned and their movements tracked. The case file expanded to more than 30,000 pages, filled with surveillance transcripts, speculation, and commentary. No evidence emerged that their activities had ever exceeded the fundamental duty to rescue people in distress at sea.

But evidence was never really the point. The ship was impounded. The crew were side-lined. Other NGOs withdrew or scaled back operations. Solidarity itself was placed under suspicion. For years, the accused were left in limbo: no trial, no verdict. An unresolved case was politically useful. The allegations did not need to be proven, only to persist: “…yes, but what about that case, the one with the NGOs and the smugglers…”

In 2024, a judge finally dismissed the case with a ruling of non luogo a procedure - no grounds to proceed. Even prosecutors acknowledged that there had never been a case to answer to. But by then, the objective had already been achieved. Not justice, but deterrence.

How to get away with organised crime

The Iuventa crew walked free. But the damage was done. Between the seizure of the Iuventa in 2017 and the end of the trial in 2024 alone, more than 10,000 people died in the Central Mediterranean. The Iuventa herself was left to rot in the port of Trapani. No one has been held accountable: not the coast guards who abandoned people at sea or forced them back to torture camps in Libya, not the politicians who drove the prosecution, not the officers who orchestrated it.

23.000 Leben - Movie & Iuventa - Documentary

Still of the netflix movie - people in lifejackets are getting rescued from a small boat.

Frequently asked questions

About the film 23.000 Leben

Is "23.000 Leben" a true story?

Yes. The film tells the story of Jugend Rettet, the Iuventa and the proceedings against its crew. A film of this kind can only ever be an artistic adaptation of reality: each character in the film is composed of several real people from the history of Iuventa – Jugend Rettet, events were condensed, and timelines partly rearranged.

Here on this website you can find out how things really happened, and everything the film does not show. Use the search function to look up keywords, use the glossary or follow the story of the Iuventa chronologically.

What does the title 23.000 Leben stand for?

Over the course of 16 missions, the Iuventa crew assisted 175 boats and was involved in the rescue of more than 23,000 people in the Central Mediterranean. As a first responder, the Iuventa was often the first vessel to arrive on scene: crew members distributed life jackets, provided emergency medical aid and stabilised overcrowded boats until further help arrived. More than 9,000 people were taken on board the Iuventa itself.

How closely were the people of Iuventa – Jugend Rettet involved in the production of the film?

Association members of Jugend Rettet, Iuventa crew members, defendants in the criminal proceedings, their lawyers and companions, as well as people who were rescued by the Iuventa, worked on the film as consultants. They influenced the script, the staging of scenes and the sets. Iuventa crew members trained the film crew and accompanied them on set every day of the shoot.

Does the Iuventa crew or civil sea rescue benefit financially from the film?

No. Neither the Iuventa crew nor Jugend Rettet nor any other civil sea rescue organisation has a share in the film's revenues. The film gives the story visibility, but no money.

What it tells, however, has cost us real money: we had to raise more than 800,000 euros for the proceedings and the defence of the civil fleet. The civil lawsuit over the destroyed Iuventa is still ongoing and has already cost us a great deal. If the film moved you, there is a direct way to turn that into more than attention: Donate!

About the criminal proceedings

What was the crew accused of?

Aiding and abetting unauthorised entry. The Trapani prosecutor's office claimed that the crew had cooperated with smugglers during several rescue operations in 2016 and 2017. Up to 20 years in prison were at stake. The accusations were based on the statements of employees of a private security company, an undercover police officer, and one of the most extensive surveillance operations ever directed against a civil sea rescue organisation. What followed was one of the longest, most expensive and legally most complicated preliminary investigations in the history of the Italian legal system.

Who were the defendants?

Originally, the investigation targeted ten crew members of the Iuventa. In the end, 21 individuals and three organisations entered the preliminary proceedings: Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children and the shipping company Vroon. Four of the defendants belonged to the Iuventa crew: two captains and two heads of mission.

Was the Iuventa really ordered to Lampedusa to be bugged there?

Yes. On 4 May 2017, one of the busiest days at sea with more than 3,500 people on the water, the Italian rescue coordination centre MRCC instructed the Iuventa not to transfer five rescued minors to a larger vessel as usual, but to bring them to Lampedusa itself, a day's journey out of the rescue zone. The crew protested; the MRCC threatened consequences. The real reason for the instruction only became apparent months later: while the ship lay in port and the crew was being interrogated, police investigators went on board and hid a listening device on the bridge. The recordings from this bug, together with the tapped phones, make up a large part of the investigation file. When the Iuventa returned to the rescue zone 48 hours later, according to reports from the NGO vessels on scene, at least five rubber dinghies had vanished during the night: at least 500 people who died because a rescue ship was pulled away for a wiretapping operation. → People drown: the human cost of policing

Were journalists and lawyers really wiretapped?

Yes. Ships and offices were bugged, more than 40 phones tapped, the crew's computers cloned, movements tracked. Wiretapping and spyware targeted not only the defendants but also journalists, lawyers, doctors and priests, communication that is normally under special protection. The investigation grew into a civil rights scandal of extraordinary proportions, occupying press associations and the Italian judiciary. Consequences for those responsible: none.

How did the proceedings end?

On 19 April 2024, the preliminary proceedings ended without a main trial ever taking place: the court in Trapani found that none of the actions of the Iuventa crew constituted a crime. More than that: it found that any action that helps enable people to escape from Libyan camps to Italy is necessary and therefore justified and cannot be punishable. After five years of investigation, two years of preliminary hearings and millions in taxpayers' money, nothing remained of the accusations.

What happened to those responsible for the proceedings?

Nothing. Neither the self-appointed spies whose statements triggered the proceedings, nor the undercover police officer whose statements were misleading, if not manipulated, nor the responsible prosecutors who pressed on without any actual verification of the allegations, were ever held to account. Some advanced their careers. This is not an oversight but a system: those who criminalise sea rescue have nothing to fear in Europe.

Were the proceedings politically motivated?

The investigation files speak for themselves: the seizure of the Iuventa came at a time when the Italian government was deliberately trying to push civil sea rescue out of the Mediterranean. Proceedings without solid evidence, kept alive for seven years, served their purpose even without a conviction: they tied up resources, intimidated, and delivered the narrative of the criminal NGOs.

What does the outcome mean for others facing criminalisation?

The Iuventa case is the best known, but not the only one. In Italy, Greece and elsewhere, people are still standing trial because they rescued others, or because they fled themselves and steered a boat. For them, there are no Netflix movies and hardly any public attention. That is why we support criminalised people on the move, such as the El Hiblu 3, and work with campaigns like De:criminalize.

Can something like this happen again?

It is already happening. The legal instruments used to prosecute the Iuventa crew still exist, and they are being applied: against rescue organisations whose ships are detained, and above all against people on the move themselves, charged as "smugglers" because they steered the boat. As long as solidarity is treated as a crime, the acquittal of the Iuventa crew is not an end point but an interim result.

About the Iuventa

Where is the Iuventa today?

She lies in a shipyard in Trapani, Sicily. After the seizure on 2 August 2017, she was transferred to Trapani on 4 August. She has been there ever since.

Why is the ship destroyed today?

After the seizure, the Iuventa initially lay guarded behind barriers. Then she was moved to the open, unguarded part of the harbour basin and left to herself, unmaintained and exposed to the elements. There were break-ins, equipment was stolen, the interior looted. Our lawyers repeatedly demanded in writing technical inspections and basic maintenance work to prevent irreversible damage, without success. In October 2022, an inspection documented the catastrophic condition and confirmed that she was in danger of sinking. In December 2022, the court consequently ordered that she be brought into dry dock and repaired. Of this, only the safeguarding was carried out: the Iuventa was brought ashore to keep her from sinking. The repairs never took place: after the proceedings were closed, the judge withdrew his order, declaring himself "not competent" to decide on the matter. The Iuventa was returned to us as a wreck. By our calculations, the damage and loss of value amount to more than 200,000 euros; today, the ship does not even reach its scrap value.

Who was responsible for the seized Iuventa?

The state that seized her. Italian criminal procedure law regulates this explicitly: seized property is entrusted to a custodian who is obliged to preserve it. In our case, the port authority of Trapani was responsible for the Iuventa during the seizure and should have ensured maintenance and effective guarding.

Who bears the costs for the destruction of the Iuventa?

At present, we do: the association Iuventa – Jugend Rettet e.V. bears the costs of berthing fees, surveys, the evidentiary proceedings and the ongoing civil lawsuit. The judge in our case declared himself not competent to decide who should pay for the repairs and referred us to the civil courts, a path we have now taken. The state that let the ship be destroyed has so far paid: nothing.

Will the Iuventa rescue people again?

We do not have the means to make the ship operational again; the costs of restoration would exceed her estimated market value. What becomes of her is also a political question: the Iuventa has long been more than a ship. She is evidence, memorial and symbol of what European states are prepared to do to prevent rescue. We are working on ideas for her future.

Why are you now taking legal action yourselves?

Neither for the criminal proceedings nor for the destruction of the ship does the Italian state take political or financial responsibility for its actions. The nearly one million euros we have had to spend so far is money entrusted to us by tens of thousands of donors for the fight against the dying in the Mediterranean. We want to return at least part of it to its actual purpose: supporting people on the move. That is why we are suing the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport for compensation. The proceedings are ongoing.

About Iuventa - Jugend rettet e.V.

Does Iuventa - Jugend Rettet still exist?

Yes. The association continues to exist, and most of us are still active: in sea rescue with other organisations, in supporting criminalised people, in political work and on this website. The seizure stopped our ship, not our work.

How are you funded and where does the money go?

Iuventa – Jugend Rettet e.V. was founded on 3 October 2015 and is an association recognised as non-profit in Germany. Our work is funded exclusively by private donations. As long as the Iuventa was in operation, most of the donations went into running the ship and the missions. Since the seizure and the proceedings against our crew, we need the money for the legal defence, the ongoing civil lawsuit, campaigns, press work and the support of other criminalised people.

How can I support you?

Donating helps in a concrete way: towards the civil lawsuit over the Iuventa, the support of other criminalised people and our political work. Just as important: talk about the case. Organise film screenings, use this website, share the story. Criminalisation thrives on nobody looking.

About sea rescue

Why do you rescue people in the Mediterranean?

Because Europe does not. Since 2014, according to official figures, more than 35,000 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean.¹ In the absence of safe routes for flight and migration, people are forced to cross in unseaworthy boats to seek protection and exercise their right to an asylum procedure. Instead of organising sea rescue at state level, the European Union seals itself off and lets people drown. Civil sea rescue emerged as a response to this deliberate failure; Jugend Rettet was among the first organisations founded. We demand safe and legal routes of entry and freedom of movement for all. No one should die attempting to cross a border.

¹ IOM Missing Migrants Project, https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean, last accessed 10.07.2026.

How many people are displaced worldwide?

Around 117 million. More than half of them, 73.5 million, are internally displaced, seeking refuge within their own country.² Only a fraction make their way to Europe: since 2015, according to official figures, just under 2.8 million people have arrived by sea,³ a small percentage measured against the EU's roughly 450 million inhabitants. How many people actually attempt the crossing, and how many die in the process, is not fully captured by statistics.

² UNHCR Refugee Statistics, https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/, last accessed 27 November 2025.
³ UNHCR Operational Data Portal, https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean, last accessed 27 November 2025.

Where do civil rescue ships operate?

In 2026, the civil fleet consists of 14 rescue ships, 6 sailing vessels and 5 aircraft.¹ They operate in international waters north of Libya.

A state's territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles from the coast; beyond that lies the so-called contiguous zone up to 24 nautical miles, in which the coastal state has limited rights, for instance for law enforcement. The Iuventa's rescues took place almost exclusively outside Libyan waters.

¹ Civil fleet actors in 2026, civil MRCC, https://civilmrcc.eu/map/civil-fleet-actors-in-2026/

Do people only board the boats because they hope to be rescued by NGO ships?

No. This question alludes to the repeatedly debunked pseudo-argument of the so-called pull factor. Studies, including by Oxford University, the Migration Policy Centre and the IOM, have shown for years that there is no correlation between the presence of NGO ships and the number of boats departing.⁴ People risk the crossing because they have no other choice. They flee war, persecution, poverty and the conditions in Libyan camps, not because of a ship on the horizon. More ships do not mean more boats. Fewer ships mean more deaths. The demand to let people drown as a deterrent is inhumane.

⁴ Cusumano/Villa 2019: Sea rescue NGOs: a pull factor of irregular migration?, https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/65024/PB_2019_22_MPC.pdf; Cusumano/Villa 2020: Over troubled waters, https://publications.iom.int/books/migration-west-and-north-africa-and-across-mediterranean-chapter-16; Steinhilper/Gruijters 2017: Border Deaths in the Mediterranean, https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2017/03/institutional.

Aren't you supporting the smugglers' business model?

No, we are working towards its abolition. If safe and legal routes existed, neither we nor the services of smugglers would be needed. Anyone seriously committed to fighting so-called smuggling networks must advocate for safe routes of flight.

Why don't people on the move take a plane or a ferry?

Because they are not allowed to. Without a visa or residence permit, no one can legally board. Asylum can only be applied for in Europe, not at embassies or consulates. Resettlement places cover a fraction of the actual need, and visas are tied to requirements that people in acute distress cannot meet, especially since administrative structures in war zones often no longer function. This is exactly why safe and legal routes of entry are needed for everyone, not only for those who happen to be born with the right passport.

Why don't you bring people back to Libya?

Under no circumstances is Libya a place of safety for people fleeing. The conditions in Libyan internment camps have been documented countless times, by the UN as well as by numerous human rights organisations.⁵ In these detention camps, people face the gravest human rights violations, including torture, abuse, sexualised violence and deprivation of liberty.

The German Foreign Office described the conditions in an internal 2017 report as "concentration-camp-like." Nothing about this has changed! Even the UNHCR has made clear for years that Libya is not a place of safety for rescued people, and the court in Trapani confirmed in our own proceedings that escaping the camps is the only way to find protection from torture, arbitrary detention and sexual violence. In its 2023 final report, the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Libya concluded that crimes against humanity are being committed against migrants in Libyan camps.

International maritime law requires that people rescued from distress at sea be brought to a place of safety. This means that basic care, access to essential medical treatment and protection from persecution must be guaranteed.⁶ The Geneva Refugee Convention likewise prohibits returning people to a country where their life and freedom are at risk.⁷ The principle of non-refoulement is also enshrined in Art. 3 of the UN Convention against Torture (CAT) and Art. 19(2) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Whoever returns people to Libya breaks international law. As early as 2012, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled against Italy in the so-called Hirsi Jamaa judgment for returning people fleeing to Libya.⁸ This is precisely why the EU funds the so-called Libyan coast guard: so that others do what European ships are not allowed to do. The UN Fact-Finding Mission has delivered a clear verdict on this as well: EU support for those who intercept and imprison people aids and abets these crimes.

⁵ Amnesty International: 'Between Life and Death': Refugees and Migrants Trapped in Libya's Cycle of Abuse, September 2020, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde19/3084/2020/en/; UNHCR Position on the Designations of Libya as a Safe Third Country and as a Place of Safety, September 2020, https://www.refworld.org/policy/countrypos/unhcr/2020/123326; UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, Final Report (A/HRC/52/83), March 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/03/libya-urgent-action-needed-remedy-deteriorating-human-rights-situation-un (all last accessed 17 July 2026).
⁶ SAR Convention 1979, Annex, Chapter 1, 1.3.2.
⁷ Article 33(1), 1951 Refugee Convention.
⁸ http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-109231 (last accessed 17 July 2026).

Is sea rescue even legal?

It is more than that: it is a duty. International maritime law obliges every ship to assist people in distress at sea. Failing to rescue is a criminal offence, not the other way around. That it was the rescuers who ended up in court, and not those who administer the dying, is the core of this case.