The arrival in Ragusa, Sicily, on Tuesday night of a 25m-long luxury yacht sailed by three Syrians, with 98 Syrians and Palestinians, including 23 children, on board, provides the first tangible proof of the existence of a rich man's "rat line" out of the Middle East and into Europe.
Various Italian media have suggested that this "rat line" is run by an organization, probably with links to Italian organised crime, which can guarantee people a trouble-free passage into and through Italy.
Above all, it guarantees that the “passengers” do not have to pass through police or coast guard controls, but rather enter Italy unnoticed at smaller “pleasure” ports, passing for tourists.
That way, the migrants avoid being identified and having their fingerprints registered by Italian police authorities.
This is of critical importance to many of the boat people, rich or poor, since the terms of the EU’s “Dublin” agreement mean that a migrant has to ask for asylum in the country where he or she has been first identified.
In all probability, it was only the bad luck of engine failure that saw this plan fail on Tuesday night. In the end, the luxury yacht was towed into Ragusa by a passing merchant ship.
All the people on board were taken to the migrant reception centre, while the three men in charge of the yacht were arrested on charges of promoting clandestine immigration.
Speaking to reporters, several of the yacht passengers confirmed that they had set out from the coast of Turkey, with the plan being that they would land at a smaller harbour further up the Italian east coast, perhaps in the Adriatic.
They had all paid €8,500 for the trip and on the yacht they had been provided with food, water and life jackets for everyone.
Meanwhile, in view of today's EU summit in Brussels on the Mediterranean's boat people crisis, Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi said in parliament yesterday that the only serious response required "a very strong presence of international organisations south of Libya".
In an open letter published in the New York Times, Mr Renzi also suggested that "we are all in part responsible" for this crisis because, so far, the international community's response has been inadequate.
Even as Mr Renzi was speaking in parliament, another 1,200 boat people were reported to be pulling into the Campania port of Salerno and into different ports in Sicily.
The increased numbers of boat people arrivals have led to a huge hike in the numbers of drownings in the Mediterranean this year.
On Tuesday, the International Organisation for Migration said that so far this year, 1,750 had died in the Mediterranean, more than 30 times higher than last year.