End of the journey for the smugglers. Five French and a Moroccan from Reims were arrested earlier this week for illegal smuggling of migrants, the Créteil prosecutor’s office said on Friday. The defendants, aged 21 to 26, will be tried on June 2 after the dismissal on Friday by the Créteil Criminal Court of their immediate appearance hearing. Five of them are also being prosecuted for criminal association, an offense punishable by ten years in prison.
They are accused of having participated, from May to October 2022, in an illegal immigration network which smuggled migrants of Tunisian, Algerian, Afghan and Syrian origin from Hungary to Austria in commercial vehicles preceded by an opening car. “Once in Austria, illegal migrants could disperse more easily in Europe, in particular by using rail transport”, detailed the prosecution.
France-Austria-Hungary cooperation
Crossing the border between Hungary and Austria was only part of the activities of this network, which was structured around twelve members and supported around 250 migrants by managing the stages of their journey through the Europe. Three of the individuals implicated in Créteil held the role of organizers, two others were drivers and a sixth was responsible for transferring the proceeds of the traffic.
These arrests occurred within the framework of an investigation opened in October by the Office for the fight against the illicit trafficking of migrants. The Austrian and Hungarian police services, which cooperated with their French counterparts in this investigation, have already imprisoned five other French nationals belonging to the same network.