Prosecutors from the Arad Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) and judicial police officers carried out 25 home searches on Thursday morning, the action targeting people believed to have smuggled migrants in and out of Romania.

The searches were conducted in Bucharest, and Botosani, Dolj, Giurgiu, Salaj, and Timis counties, and were aimed at dismantling an organized crime ring specialized in smuggling migrants on the Turkey-Romania-Hungary route.

DIICOT prosecutors say that, in 2016, the group’s members may have smuggled more than 100 migrants into the country, with most of them being Syrians, Iraqis, Turks, Afghans, and Moroccans. Then, the same members of the criminal group tried to smuggle the migrants out of the country, to Hungary. The immigrants’ final destination was Germany.

“Five transports of migrants were intercepted during the investigative activities, in one of the cases being detected 42 people hidden in a road tanker, with 18 of them being minors. The financing of the group’s activities was done in Turkey,” reads the DIICOT statement.

A total of 20 people were detained in this case.

Border Police cathes two groups of Iraqui asylum seekers trying to leave Romania illegally

Five asylum seekers try to leave Romania illegally by taxi

Border Police: 29 Syrian migrants caught at the Romanian-Serbian border

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com