Migrant-smuggling driver cell intercepted in France

Europol supported the French Gendarmerie nationale (Section de Recherche de Strasbourg) in dismantling an organised criminal network involved in the smuggling of migrants across the EU borders crossing the so-called Balkan route. The investigation was also supported by Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Serbia through operational information shared via Europol. Around 300 gendarmerie officers took part of the action day against this network, which took place on 1 April 2025. One part of the action day, supported by the Polizia di Stato, took place in the north of Italy where one of the leaders of the criminal network was located.

At the end of 2022, the French Gendarmerie in Strasbourg initiated an investigation against a criminal network involved in the smuggling of migrants from Serbia into the EU. The criminal network was mainly active across the Serbian-Hungarian and Greek-Turkish borders. However, smuggling operations linked to this network were also detected at intra-Schengen borders, notably at the Austrian-Hungarian and the Austrian-Croatian border