(AP) Austrian authorities said Saturday they have arrested 15 people suspected of smuggling Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian migrants into the country, and seized 14 vehicles that were used to transport them.
Police in Lower Austria province said they opened an investigation last month into the group that smuggled migrants from the Serbian-Hungarian border via Slovakia and the Czech Republic to Austria’s northeastern corner. They were dropped off north of Vienna.
The 15 suspected smugglers — citizens of Moldova, Ukraine and Uzbekistan — were arrested mostly in checks in mid-November on suspicious vehicles as well as at a Vienna hotel, police said in a statement. All of them tried to flee when they were stopped.
