The Italian police believe that the people smugglers who abandoned ship last week made $3 million on just the one trip of the Ezadeen which was carrying 359 illegal migrants, mostly from Syria.
The abandoned cargo ship was found by coast guards and towed into the Italian port of Corigliano Calabro on Friday night.
It was the second case of abandoned migrant vessel and authorities believe both journeys began in Turkey rather than the most usual route from Libya. The first ship, the Blue Sky M, had 796 migrants on board.
The police chief of the province, Luigi Liguori, said each migrant had paid between $4,000 and $8,000 to board the ship.
"We've noticed a change in the make-up of the Syrian refugees on board," he said. "They are socially well off. They wear better clothes and are also better organised and, if you allow me to, they are less desperate than the migrants we normally see," he noted.
Officers say that the smugglers wore hoods and locked the migrants in the ship's hold before abandoning ship apparently on a lifeboat, leaving the passengers to an unknown fate.
Last year it is estimated that nearly 3,500 refugees died trying to cross the Mediterranean while another 200,000 were rescued.
One Syrian migrant from the first abandoned ship said that he paid "Turkish mafia" €7,000 for himself and another €7,000 for his pregnant wife to make the journey.
Illegal migrants arriving in the EU are assessed to see if they have a valid claim for asylum. They must satisfy the authorities they are fleeing persecution and would face harm or even death if sent back to their country of origin.
