New situation report – hundreds of people smugglers arrested in Austria in 2022

According to the Interior Ministry, the war in Ukraine has reignited the traffickers’ business. The criminal gangs would advertise that it was easier than ever to come to Europe. This is also reflected in the number of seizures. In 2022, 712 people smugglers were arrested in Austria – about 61 percent more than in 2021, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) said at a press conference in Vienna on Tuesday.

In 2021, 441 people smugglers were caught in Austria, in 2020 there were 311 and also before the corona pandemic with 242 in 2019 significantly less. Only in 2015 were there more, with 1,108 smugglers arrested. “Every tractor taken out of service means saving lives,” says Karner.

The most recent seizures — such as early April in Carinthia, where 35 refugees were crammed into a truck for 70 hours already hypothermic and “at risk of suffocation” — again show “the brutality of the trafficking mafia,” Karner said. The smugglers don’t care about the people. “The goods must not spoil” is the smugglers’ motto, so “people’s lives are being talked about”, according to Tatzgern. According to him, in 2022 there were four deaths among those towed.

Karner confirmed that decisive action would continue against the ruthless smuggler mafia. The Minister of the Interior is committed to border point checks and border area checks both nationally and internationally. “An important signal is the deportation and repatriation,” said Karner. In 2022, “nearly 13,000 deportations were carried out,” the minister reports. About 40 percent were forced to leave the country, 60 percent of those affected left the country voluntarily.