STA, 15 October 2019 - The Novo Mesto police, which noticed signs of a migrant smuggling ring on the south-eastern section of the border with Croatia a year ago, said on Tuesday they had caught 11 individuals suspected of involvement in at least 30 smuggling operations.
The investigation showed that prices for the transport of individual migrants ranged between 300 and 400 euros.
France Božičnik of the Novo Mesto Police Administration said that the smuggling had mostly been done in the boots of cars rented abroad.
Several arrests of Slovenian suspects, aged between 20 and 30, and mostly from the area near the border, were made by Slovenian police, while Croatian police also arrested several Slovenian and Croatian citizens.
Criminal complaints have been filed against 11 individuals, with several house searches conducted in September yielding evidence of a people smuggling ring.
The head of the ring has been in prison since June over unrelated criminal acts, while the rest have not been detained. They face up to eight years in prison.
Meanwhile, Božičnik said that a total of 86 of migrant smugglers had been arrested in area overseen by Novo Mesto police this year. They had tried to smuggle 530 foreigners. In 2018, 52 smugglers were caught, who tried to get 290 migrants across the border.
Two migrants crash car stolen from near Novo mesto
STA, 16 October 2019 - Two citizens of Morocco were involved in a car accident in central Slovenia at 4 AM this morning. According to police, the pair, which had illegally crossed the border, hit a road fence on a regional road between Litija and Zagorje, just east of Ljubljana while driving a stolen car.
The cause of the accident was speeding and the car was allegedly stolen in the Novo Mesto area, the Ljubljana police department said in a press release.
The driver sustained light injuries and was transported to the Trbovlje general hospital in an ambulance, while the passenger was not injured.
The police investigation continues.
