The criminal network facilitated illegal entry of Bengali, Egyptian and Pakistani nationals into the EU by arranging fraudulent work visas.
Romanian police have dismantled an organized crime group in a cross-border investigation that arranged the illegal arrival in Romania of migrants via fraudulently obtained work visas, before facilitating their further illegal movements to other EU countries.
The Romanian police was supported by Europol and involved the Austrian Police and the Italian Carabinieri Corps, a statement said.
On April 24, 29 locations were searched (2 in Austria, 6 in Italy and 21 in Romania), 12 arrests were made and luxury cars, electronic equipment, documents and the equivalent of over EUR 146 000 in cash in different currencies were seized.
The criminal network was composed mainly of Romanian and Pakistani nationals, who had established companies in Romania. The suspects allegedly brought Bengali, Egyptian and Pakistani nationals to Romania with work visas, fraudulently obtained by misleading the competent authorities.
The investigation identified other Romanian companies, managed by Romanian nationals cooperating with the criminal network, which were also used for fraudulently acquiring work permits and visas.
The criminal network requested 509 work permits in total from Romania and acquired permits for 102 migrants. The migrants used these fraudulently obtained visas to illegally enter Romania.
Investigative leads suggest that 76 migrants who arrived in Romania using fraudulent documents then made secondary movements to other EU countries. During the investigation, 26 migrants were detected in Romania, Italy and Austria.
The criminal network charged between 5,000 and 6,000 euros per person to arrange the arrival to Romania and another 2,000 to 5,000 per migrant for the subsequent movement to another EU country. The criminal network is believed to have obtained least 1 million euros illegal profits.
Members of the network based in Pakistan were responsible for recruiting migrants locally who wanted to reach the EU. Other members of the criminal network arranged the accommodation of migrants in different locations in Brasov and Bucharest before further transporting them to the area of Timisoara on southwest Romania.
From there, other accomplices picked up the migrants and transported to the Romanian-Hungarian border, where the migrants illegally crossed green borders on foot or hidden in vehicles. Romanian authorities detected a number of migrants smuggled by this network while they were crossing the borders or directly in the territory of other EU states, mostly in Italy and Austria.
In one of the cases in Italy, the Italian authorities detected 45 irregular migrants on foot along the Italian-Slovenian border.
Europol supported the investigation within the framework of the operational plan signed with Romania in regards to the Ukrainian crisis. Europol facilitated the exchange of information and provided operational coordination and analytical support.
On Wednesday, Europol deployed one analyst to Italy and one to Romania to cross-check operational information against Europol’s databases and to provide leads to investigators in the field.
A joint investigation team (JIT) was set up between the Italy, Romania and Europol with the support of Eurojust in April 2024.
Headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands, Europol supports the 27 EU Member States in their fight against terrorism, cybercrime, and other serious and organized crime forms.
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