30 January 2013

EULEX police and Kosovo police representatives participated in an international press conference in Budapest, Hungary presenting the successful conclusion of a Europe-wide operation related to the smuggling of migrants from Syria, Libya and Turkey to Western Europe. The operation across Europe was made possible by intelligence and information provided by EULEX.

During the operation which took place on Tuesday 29 January simultaneously in 10 countries, 103 persons were arrested and 117 searches were conducted. The contribution of EULEX and Kosovo police was unprecedented in terms of such a large scale operation that came to fruition.

As part of this operation in Kosovo EULEX and KP jointly arrested three persons, while one other was arrested last week and 11 others were arrested in 2011 and 2012, bringing the number of total arrests to 15 suspects only in Kosovo. Allegedly, some of the main leaders of this transnational crime network were operating from Kosovo, which served as a transit route from Syria, Libya and Turkey on to other Western European countries.

The so-called Fimathu project was conducted under the umbrella of EUROPOL and involved cooperation with Kosovo, Montenegro, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

In Kosovo, the case is being investigated by a EULEX prosecutor from the Special Prosecution Office of Kosovo.