Smugglers arrested

Fugitive migrants hidden in former customs house

In this van, a smuggler brought 19 refugees across the border in Nikitsch on Sunday.

(Bild: Christian Schulter)

The Austrian Armed Forces raised the alarm and Operation Fox forces responded quickly: a smuggler had brought 19 refugees to Austria in the hold of his van near Nikitsch. The smuggler was arrested. The migrants had barricaded themselves in the cellar of the old customs house. 

Soldiers raised the alarm when they noticed a suspicious van with Hungarian license plates on a secret route at the border in Nikitsch on Sunday afternoon. The attentive recruits were convinced that the white Ford Transit was a towing vehicle.

Operation Fox was launched at
The report was immediately forwarded to Operation Fox police patrols. Then it all happened in quick succession. The van was stopped shortly afterwards and the tow truck - presumably a Romanian - was apprehended.

The handcuffs clicked for the trafficker. He is in police custody.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

After his arrest, the emergency services set off in search of the refugees that the smuggler had previously put on the road in Burgenland. The officers tracked down the missing migrants in the old customs house in the border community.

Resistance to police
All the refugees had barricaded themselves in the basement of the dilapidated office building to avoid detection. Those apprehended, who initially flatly refused to leave the former customs house, were one Afghan and 18 Syrians, two of whom were still minors. The refugees stated that they wanted to go to Germany - and immediately applied for asylum. They had no documents.

Fewer arrests so far
The provincial police directorate points out that despite the current large-scale operation, the number of migrants arriving in Austria from Hungary has fallen dramatically. This year, 470 arrivals were reported by the end of July. In the same period last year, there were 13,000 registrations, and around 23,000 from January to July 2022.