Italian police in the northeastern city of Trieste said it had ascertained that smugglers give sleeping pills to migrant children to prevent them from making a noise as they are moved at night across the Croatian-Slovenian border. Adults meanwhile were jacked up on energy drinks to make the trek across the mountainous region.
Police in Trieste said that migrants paid up to €250 for the crossing to get into the European Union. They would be taken to the Croatian-Slovenian border to walk from Croatian side to Slovenia at night, where they later would be picked up and moved further into Italy.
Those who had children were provided with sleeping pills to keep them quiet and not draw attention to the irregular border crossing, according to police. It is assumed that the dosages given were not specifically geared towards children.
Adults meanwhile were given "huge amounts" of energy drinks to successfully make the arduous journey while carrying their children.
Authorities added that they had found out about cases in which smugglers beat up the migrants to make them continue the trek.
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Creating awareness about dirty tricks of smugglers
The information was obtained as part of a cross-national investigation, in which 26 suspected members of a suspected smuggling ring were identified.
Seven of them were arrested, five are still being sought after warrants were issued against them and another 13 remain under investigation.
All the suspects were reported as being Albanian and Kosovo citizens, with many of them residing in Italy.
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Prefect Francesco Messina of the Trieste Police said that most of the migrants who were smuggled across the border this way did not want to end up in Italy, and ultimately journeyed further, adding that it was common for migrants to head to northern Europe.
"This is of course a limited operation and won't lower the passage of migrants in the short-term, but it creates an awareness that can bring us to a greater containment of this phenomenon,'' Messina said.
The investigation was launched back in 2021, at which time Croatia still had border controls, which were dropped earlier this year when it joined the EU's Schengen area.
Since the beginning of the year, Croatia forms part of the EU's external border, with movements across the Balkan Route becoming subject to greater scrutiny and oversight.
Read more: Slovenia: Increase in unauthorized arrivals in 2022
with AP