Federal police is taking a major action against smugglers

The Federal Police have attacked Schleuser in six federal states and searched 38 apartments and commercial properties. The action on behalf of the prosecutor Osnabrück is directed against the smuggling of foreigners from Eastern Europe, said a spokesman for the Federal Police in Hanover. An arrest warrant has been requested against a suspect.

510 federal police were in Lower Saxony, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Rhineland-Palatinate in use, as it says in a statement. The investigators found documents, data carriers, large amounts of cash and weapons.

Raids also in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse

Above all, the gang is alleged to have brought in workers from the Ukraine to illegally transfer them to companies through its own agency in Germany. The perpetrators are said to have equipped temporary workers with false EU passports and assisted in registering with authorities and insurance companies. The entry and the stay were justified touristic, in order to avoid an otherwise necessary residence title.

The investigations are inter alia on suspicion of the commercial smuggling of foreigners and the illegal labor hiring. According to the Federal Police, the perpetrators also ran shelters where they placed workers near their jobs.

In a separate action 180 federal police were also in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse against a gang, the several people from Azerbaijan have illegally moved to Germany. 13 objects in Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt am Main and Wiesbaden were searched. In addition, two arrest warrants were enforced, as the federal police in Koblenz announced.