The head of a Syrian people smuggling gang that charged migrants from the Middle East €10,000 ($10,835) to be taken across Europe has been arrested.
The alleged leader of the criminal network was detained in Romania, where he recruited locals, who normally worked as taxi drivers, to transport migrants.
Police found 21 Syrian and nine Iraqi migrants in safe houses waiting to be taken to Western Europe, with Germany as a common final location.
As well as being a popular destination for migrants, Germany is also used by gangs looking to transport asylum seekers across the English Channel.
Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, said investigators uncovered a criminal network consisting mainly of Syrian and Romanian citizens operating from Bucharest.
The gang used the city of Timișoara as a centre for housing and the transport of migrants, who paid between €5,000 ($5,400) and €10,000 and were hidden among goods in lorries.
Between February and May, Romanian authorities detected five smuggling incidents with 70 irregular migrants.
Nine locations in Romania were raided during which documents, electronic equipment and cash were seized.
The alleged leader had been living in Romania for three years and has ties with other people smugglers based in Istanbul, according to Europol.
He acted as a regional co-ordinator for migrant smuggling activities along the leg of the route through Romania and Bulgaria.
The investigation involved the Bulgarian General Directorate Combating Organised Crime and was supported by Austria, Germany and Hungary.
Refugee rights organisation Collective Aid reported an increased number of Syrians using the Balkans to reach Western Europe.
The NGO said the increase was due to the breaches by the Syrian regime and food insecurity.
The latest statistics from the EU Agency for Asylum showed that last year, Syrians submitted 181,000 applications to gain access to the bloc, a 38 per cent increase compared to 2022.
The arrests in Romania come amid fears migrants will continue to die in greater numbers by attempting to cross the English Channel in overcrowded boats.
Recent weeks have seen asylum seekers die after vessels capsized after setting out from northern France.
In the latest incident, a migrant believed to be a Syrian woman, suffocated on a boat with 75 asylum seekers onboard. The boat got into difficulty while trying to cross from northern France to the UK.
