By: C.R.
Croatian police have charged ten Croatian citizens with smuggling people from Bosnia and Herzegovina across Croatia to Slovenia. Between October last year and March this year, at least 16 migrants were to be smuggled from Croatia to Slovenia, and at least 77 people from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia.
Following an extensive criminal investigation, ten Croatian citizens, aged between 31 and 42, were charged on suspicion of human smuggling. Today, Zagreb police announced that the youngest of them is a woman.
In the past six months, the ten have organised a transport of a large number of illegal migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia and then to Slovenia past border crossings. Rent-a-car vehicles were used for transportation. Migrants were smuggled into Slovenia from the wider area of Zagreb and from Međimurje County. In Croatia, accommodation was also provided for migrants before they were smuggled into Slovenia.
In 12 cases, at least 77 illegal migrants were smuggled from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia, and at least 16 people from Croatia to Slovenia. They demanded several thousand euros per person for transport from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Slovenia, while they demanded several hundred euros for transport across Croatia from the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina to the border with Slovenia.
As they wrote in today’s police message, eight members of the group were taken into custody, in which one member of the group has already been detained, and they are still looking for one.