Raid against suspected smugglers: Police find drugs
Created: 04/27/2022Updated: 04/27/2022 11:07 am
Federal police officers are standing in front of a house entrance.
© Martin Schutt/dpa
For months, the police have been investigating a suspected gang of people smugglers, and now there has been a raid: apartments were searched in Erfurt, Halle and Zwickau.
The police hopes that the evidence that has been seized will provide even more evidence of people smugglers.
Erfurt/Halle/Zwickau – They are said to have demanded between 2,000 and 4,000 euros for a transport to Germany: the Federal Police took action against a group of suspected smugglers in Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
Eleven apartments were searched on Wednesday morning - seven of them in Erfurt, three in Halle and one in Zwickau, as a spokesman for the federal police said on Wednesday.
The investigations are about the suspicion of the commercial smuggling of people into Germany.
Some of the people are said to have been brought to other EU countries.
The police are investigating nine suspects between the ages of 17 and 52.
In several cases they are said to have organized and carried out the smuggling of mostly Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi nationals.
According to the Federal Police, the transports from Serbia are said to have passed through several Eastern European countries.
The smugglers are said to have collected between 2,000 and 4,000 euros per person for this.
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According to the police, the accused included both the organizers of the transports and the drivers who are said to have carried out the smuggling.
They were taken into custody in the meantime, but should be released again on Wednesday morning, according to the police.
It is still unclear how many such transports were carried out - the police hope the raid will provide further information on such cases.
The investigators secured storage media as well as smartphones, documents, cash and drugs on Wednesday.
The evaluation of this evidence will take some time, it said.
Special forces from the Federal Police were also used in the searches.
A total of 250 volunteers were involved.
The public prosecutor's office in Gera, which is primarily responsible for organized crime proceedings in Thuringia, is in charge of the proceedings.
dpa
