An organized group of people smugglers was busted
Officers from the Polish Bug River Branch of the Border Guard defeated an international, organized criminal group involved in smuggling immigrants across the Polish-Belarusian border to Western European countries. There are currently 32 suspects under investigation.
The proceedings conducted by officers from the Operational and Investigation Department of the Bug River Branch of the Border Guard, supervised by the Lublin Branch of the Department for Organized Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, concern an organized criminal group that organized (in order to obtain financial benefits) the illegal crossing of the Belarusian-Polish border . Members of the group transferred foreigners who did not have documents entitling them to cross the European Union border, and then transported them to Western European countries. It is estimated that criminals could have smuggled approximately 2,600 people this way. A foreigner who illegally tried to get to Europe had to spend at least several thousand dollars for this purpose.
The findings of the officers of the operational department of the Border Guard and the prosecutor show that the organized, international criminal group includes both Polish citizens and citizens of Ukraine, Iraq and Belarus. The practice involved organizing illegal migration, already organized in Turkey, Iraq and Belarus. The immigrants were most often citizens of Iraq, Syria and Palestine, who first went to Belarus and then (after illegally crossing the border with Poland) were transported into the interior of the country up to the German border.
Currently, there are 32 suspects under investigation by the Lublin Branch of the Department for Organized Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, including: citizens of: Poland, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Georgia. The proceedings, which involved services from Poland, Lithuania and Germany, are conducted in close cooperation with Eurojust and Europol.
