Serbia stops smuggling Chinese to Europe

BELGRADE, Serbia, April 8 (UPI) -- Serbian police said Wednesday they broke an international ring smuggling Chinese migrants to Serbia, Macedonia, Greece and others parts of Europe.

Serbian Minister of Interior Ivica Dacic said it was a successful action, in cooperation with police of the Balkan countries, that ended six months of surveillance with the arrest of seven Serbians and a Chinese resident in Belgrade on suspicion of human trafficking.

The suspects had allegedly made profits of several thousand dollars per each illegal migrant, Dacic said. He didn't say how many Chinese were smuggled to EU countries.

The Serbian ring allegedly had accomplices in China, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece working on transferring "many tens" of Chinese by plane to Belgrade, from where illegal migrants were smuggled to Greece and on to western Europe, the Serbian news agency Beta said.

The eight suspects are to be passed on to an investigation judge of the Belgrade District Court, the agency said.