Police and Prosecutor's Office Disrupt Migrant Trafficking Ring

A criminal group involved in trafficking migrants through Bulgaria to the Serbian border has been dismantled. The traffickers allegedly disguised themselves using fake police and migration service uniforms to avoid detection.

According to prosecutors, the organisation had been operating for over a year, coordinating the logistics of migrant transport across the country. The suspects recruited drivers to transport migrants — mostly men from Pakistan and Afghanistan — from the Burgas region to the Serbian border. Several safe houses were reportedly used around Elin Pelin, near Sofia.

The smugglers charged between €3,000 and €5,000 per person. During searches at multiple addresses, investigators discovered GPS trackers, navigation devices, and T-shirts bearing “Police” and “Migration” insignia.

Sofia District Prosecutor Natalia Nikolova said that five people have been charged, three of whom also face additional counts related to the actual transportation of migrants.

Chief Commissioner Anton Zlatanov, Director of the Border Police, noted:“Over the past year and a half, we’ve neutralised more than 20 organised groups engaged in migrant smuggling. Each time one of these groups is taken down, the pressure on Bulgaria’s borders decreases. This year alone, we’ve seen a 70% drop in migrant flow.”

Chief Commissioner Lyubomir Nikolov, head of the Sofia Directorate of Interior: "We have found that the members of the group, as well as their leader, in many cases travel together with the smuggled migrants and with the drivers hired by them. Rather, they were doing the same for coordination and logistical support."

The leader of the group has not yet been identified. Some of those arrested had suspended sentences for the same offence.