Czech, Austrian, and German police cracked down on gang smuggling Chechens into Western Europe

Officials of the Austrian, Czech, and German police announced at a news conference in Prague on October 24 they have jointly cracked down on an international gang smuggling people into Western Europe, mostly immigrants from Chechnya, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Sixteen people suspected of taking part in this trafficking were arrested in the Czech Republic. The arrests began in Prague on October 21 and continued in seven Southern Bohemian and Moravian cities.

Simultaneous police operations also took place in Austria and Germany. A total of 29 people were arrested in all three countries. The detainees mostly come from the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.

According to the Czech police, before the gang smuggled people from Arabic countries, and in recent months it focused on the Caucasians, mostly Chechens coming from Poland to the Czech Republic. These refugees were then smuggled into Austria.

The Czech police stated the gang had smuggled at least 1,500 people since July 2002 and garnered over one million euros for it.

During this past summer allegations emerged about a "critical situation bordering on humanitarian disaster" and "gross human rights violations of Chechen refugees in the Czech Republic." In September a specialist familiar with this issue told Prague Watchdog that "the situation might be related to the fact that some Chechen refugees had already paid smugglers for transport to Austria, and therefore they were seriously urging Czech institutions to shorten the registration process in the Vysni Lhoty camp".

Chechen refugees began arriving in the Czech Republic in the mid-90s, when the first Chechen war broke out.