Smuggling

Customs officers arrested on smuggling charges

BELGRADE -- A group of eight suspects, two Customs Administration officers among them, has been arrested on suspicion of organizing a smuggling ring.

Police in Kilkis, northern Greece, said on Saturday that they had smashed a criminal racket alleged to have smuggled thousands of packets of contraband cigarettes into Greece.

Police said they arrested four Greek nationals, aged 24, 36, 37 and 48, on a rural road near the country?s border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) late on Thursday.

A member of Bulgaria's Special Unit for Combating Terrorism (SOBT) has been arrested at the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing which leads into Turkey.

The 72-hour detention is expected to be followed by a prosecutors' demand that he remain in custody, private national NOVA TV station reports.

Thirteen people allegedly operating human trafficking activities were arrested in the western province of ?zmir early April 23, after many migrants were rescued illegally en route to the European Union. 

A total of 13 of 17 people who were detained on April 22 on allegations of human smuggling have been arrested by a ?zmir court after being interrogated at the prosecution office.

The number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean could surge to 500,000 this year, with deaths at sea reaching thousands if no action is taken against the people who traffic them, the head of the U.N.'s maritime agency warned on April 22.

Roughly 100 migrants that "landed" on the small island of Gavdos, south of Crete, last week will be transported by ferry boat to Athens from Crete and then simply ? released to go where-ever they please, according to authorities.

The Plovdiv District Prosecutor's Office has charged five people, including two customs officers, a Border Police officer, a manager of a freight forwarding company and an employee of the company, with cigarette smuggling.

Organized crime in the European Union generates about 110 billion euros a year, corresponding to around 1 percent of the EU?s gross domestic product, a recent report commissioned by the European Commission found, with the bulk of that coming from the ?traditional? market of illegal narcotics.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said on Wednesday he could table next week a proposal to merge the National Revenue Agency and the Customs Agency.

Borisov announced during a regular cabinet sitting that the measure was necessary due to "discouraging" results in the fight against smuggling.

Serbs and Greeks arrested for smuggling migrants

BUDAPEST -- The Hungarian police have arrested two Serbian and two Greek citizens in two separate incidents related to illegal border crossings of a total of 28 migrants.