Czech authorities have arrested five people suspected of being part of an international smuggling network, a spokesperson for a special unit fighting organized crime said on Wednesday (March 1).

Some of the accused gang members have confessed. If convicted, they could face up to twelve years imprisonment.

The arrests were made during raids in the cities of Prague, Brno and Mlada Boleslav. Authorities are still searching for four other suspects who were being probed. 

The gang is accused of smuggling irregular migrants into Germany and other western European countries via the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. The group allegedly operated an officially registered company which pretended to headhunt foreign workers for Czech companies. Around 130 similar cases have been found.

Czech Republic sees surge in number of undocumented migrants

In 2022, Czech authorities detained 277 suspected human traffickers – more than four times the number in 2021.

The number of irregular migrants entering the Czech Republic more than doubled to 29,235 in 2022, according to Prague police. In 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions were in place, Czech Republic reported 11,170 irregular migrants.

In 2022, almost 21,000 of the arrivals were Syrian nationals seeking to travel onwards to Western Europe. Only 694 migrants – including 50 Syrians – applied for asylum in the Czech Republic itself, according to figures from the interior ministry. 

In September last year, the Czech Republic reinforced its 250-kilometer border with Slovakia with additional security checks. The checks were originally brought in to counter an uptick in migration on the Balkan route into the European Union (EU). 

With DPA and Reuters