STA, 4 November 2019 - Slovenian police have arrested nine foreigners who tried to help migrants illegally cross the border and processed around 150 cases of illegal border crossing in the south-west of the country since Wednesday.
On Saturday, police spotted a car with German licence plates in the town of Kozina running a red light and then speeding up towards Italy.
Notifying Italian police, Slovenian police followed the car into Italy, where it crashed into another car in Basovizza, the Koper Police Department said on Monday.
The car was driven by an Iraqi with an Iraqi woman co-driver, both of whom had their status approved in Germany. They were transporting two Iraqi illegal migrants and a child.
Once apprehended, the foreign citizens were taken to an Italian hospital and the investigation was taken over by Italian law enforcement.
On the same day, police pulled over three cars registered in Italy near the town of Knežak.
They arrested a Romanian, an Italian woman and three Pakistani citizens for organising illegal transport of migrants across the border.
All twelve foreigners whom the suspects brought to Slovenia without proper documents were sent to a centre for foreigners. Ten of them were Eritreans.
Two days earlier, an Albanian citizen driving a car with Italian licence plates and transporting two Albanian illegal migrants was also arrested in the south-west.
Both illegal migrants were sent back to Croatia, and an investigating judge placed the driver in detention.
On Friday, a 53-year old Croatian citizen was found transporting three Turkish illegal migrants. He too was placed in detention.
