140 federal police and 80 officers from Brandenburg are on duty Photo: Spreepicture
By Dirk Böttger
Big smuggling raid on Tuesday morning in Berlin and Brandenburg! At least 220 police officers are on duty. The gang smuggled people into Germany via the Balkan route! A 30-year-old Syrian was arrested.
140 federal police and 80 officers from Brandenburg are currently on duty: They are currently searching nine properties in Berlin and Brandenburg – three arrest warrants are being executed.
The authorities have been investigating since April of this year since an incident in June of this year: the driver of a van drove into the Spree in Saxony-Anhalt. Six people were injured.
According to BZ information, the 30-year-old Syrian now arrested in Lichtenberg is said to be the driver of the car from June.
Gang smuggled via Balkan route
The smuggling gang consists of Syrians, Poles, Serbs and Germans. There are a total of ten suspects, three of whom have received an arrest warrant. Some of the group are also said to have traded drugs.
In Berlin, the searches are currently taking place in the districts of Lichtenberg, Neukölln, and Reinickendorf – in Brandenburg, searches are being carried out in Luckenwalde (Teltow-Fläming district) and in Dallgow-Döberitz (Havelland district).
The accused smuggled people over the Balkan route, sometimes in cars that were occupied by up to 13 people and in vans with up to 17 people.
The searches are carried out by the Potsdam public prosecutor’s office, which also issued the arrest warrants.