HEADS OF PEOPLE SMUGGLING GANGS CAUGHT! Big operation by MUP and Europol: Syrians arrested in Belgrade!

Photo: MUP.RS

Members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), the Criminal Police Directorate, the Service for Combating Organized Crime, and the officers from the Belgrade Police Administration - in coordination with the Public Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime - have arrested citizens of Syria A.B. (32) and F.B. (32).

Recommended

This was done after several months of joint international investigation aimed at discovering and breaking up an international network of people smugglers, initiated by the German police and with the support of Europol and Eurojust, acting on an Interpol notice issued by Germany.

These arrests were made in Belgrade.

The same day another member of an organized criminal group was arrested in Germany, and searches of apartments and other premises used by the suspects were carried out.

The international police operation carried out by Germany and Serbia, coordinated by Europol, has led to the arrest of members of two connected Syrian criminal networks suspected of smuggling more than 900 migrants to the European Union. The gangs operated along routes across the Mediterranean Sea and the Western Balkans.

According to the German police, the first criminal network organized the smuggling of a large group of irregular migrants from Libya via the island of Lampedusa to Germany, while the second criminal network was smuggling a large number of irregular migrants along the Western Balkan route to Germany and other EU countries.

Previously, in 2025, five high-ranking members of this organized group were arrested in coordinated actions in the territory of Germany, the Netherlands, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The procedure to extradite the Syrian citizens arrested in Serbia is under way.

(Telegraf.rs)