Members of human trafficking network arrested in several European countries

Police in Poland, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania and Latvia, coordinated by Europol, have arrested several members of a human smuggling ring using the Belarusian border with Poland to smuggle migrants into Europe.

Polish police have reinforced the border with Belarus to prevent mass illegal entries.

Lieutenant Anna Michalska, a spokeswoman for the Polish Border Guard, said this is a new wave of arrests in relation to people smuggled from Belarus into Polish territory. 

“The Border Guard has already detained 39 people this year. These are the organisers and people operating at various levels of the hierarchy of this criminal group. These people did not necessarily know each other, they did not know who was operating at what level.”

The network used Turkey as the start of the journey. From there, the migrants were sent to Moscow by plane. From the Russian capital, they were sent to Belarus.

Once across the EU border, the network used clandestine transports to get them to Germany, the final destination.

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