Radio Slovenia has a report that looks at the economics of human smuggling in Slovenia, finding that the profits can be even greater than those of moving illegal drugs across borders.
The story – which comes after a spike in police interceptions of human traffickers, with, for example, seven people recently arrested in Celje for moving at least 270 individuals through Slovenia – interviews a former intelligence officer, Boštjan Perne , with over 15 years of intelligence experience in the Balkans. He claims that human smugglers now charge more than €5,000 for transport in trucks along a route that leads directly from Turkey to Western Europe. However, this price is too high for many would-be migrants, who thus tend to pay less, from €200 to €500, to be moved across individual borders.
Related: Foreigners Account for 1/4 of Slovenia’s Prisoners, Most Jailed for Human Smuggling
While Perne states that Slovenians are obviously involved in this aspect of organised crime, he also notes the international nature of the business: "If we look at the different nationalities currently imprisoned for trafficking in human beings, you will see that here [Slovenia] is the real mecca of different nations - Serbs, Croats, Pakistanis, Slovenians, Germans, Italians."
All our stories on human trafficking are here
