Mered allegedly directed operations in Africa but also kept fellow operators in Italy up to date on the arrival of boats, so migrants could be picked up and squeezed for more money to continue to their final destinations in Europe.
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He was arrested in Khartoum, Sudan, on May 24 and flown to Italy on Tuesday.
Mered is suspected of working with an Ethiopian, Ghermay Ermias, who is still at large, prosecutors said. Between them, they are accused of raking in huge sums by bringing migrants from Libya to Italy across the Mediterranean on overcrowded and often unseaworthy boats, the prosecutor added.
He has been on a wanted list for over a year for global people smuggling.
Some 204,000 migrants and refugees have made the crossing since January this year and more than 2,500 have died – the vast majority of them on crossings between Libya and Italy.
Medhanie styled himself on the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and is said to have driven around in a tank. The NCA reportedly believes that Mered had arranged the transit of a boat that sank near the Italian island of Lampedusa in October 2013.
He is “the accused ringleader of one of the four largest criminal migrant trafficking organisations”, the Sudanese interior ministry said in a joint statement with the country’s British and Italian embassies.
Medhanie Yehdego Mered, 35, who had been on a wanted list since 2015 for worldwide people smuggling, was arrested in the Sudanese capital Khartoum and flown to Italy late on Monday.
Sicilian prosecutor Calogero Ferrara said a year ago and Mered and Ermias were opportunistic, purchasing kidnapped migrants from other criminals in Africa.
By his calculations, each boat trip of 600 people made the smugglers between $800,000 and $1 million before costs.
Italy has been on the frontline of the immigration crisis.
In 2014, the year after the Lampedusa tragedy, the number of migrant arrivals to Italy jumped to 170,000, before dropping to 153,800 last year.
Sudan has extradited the alleged people-smuggling kingpin, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, to Italy, prosecutors said.
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More than 8 000 people are also believed to have died in the Mediterranean since the start of 2014, some off the Italian coast and others seeking to reach Greece. Doctors Without Borders says that at least 900 people died last week alone.
