In Croatia, the police have arrested 52 people on suspicion that they have transported about 200 illegal migrants from the Middle and Far East and from the former Yugoslavia to Western Europe over the past year, earning at least EUR 150,000, Croatian police officials said at a news conference in Zagreb on Thursday.
Illegal migrants were transferred via Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia to Slovenia, Austria and some other European Union member-states.
The "transport fare" ranged between EUR 500 and 1,500, depending on the length of the route and the number of illegals being transported in a group.
The Slovene police suspected 13 people of involvement in the smuggling rings and arrested four of them, two being Croatian nationals.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, five people have been apprehended, some of whom already had criminal records.
Austria has caught several people as part of this operation, but the exact number of the people arrested has not been made public.
The suspects were involved in trafficking in human beings, illegal narcotics and other profitable goods.
A financial investigation into the property of the arrestees will follow.
During the police raids in Croatia, drugs, arms and ammunition were found in flats and cars used by the suspects, but the police declined to specify the amount of the confiscated goods.