International crime ring broken: Human traffickers who turned poor people into beggars in Italy arrested

During the search of the suspects' apartments, the police found 14,640 euros, a small amount of Australian and US dollars, 560,000 dinars, eight mobile phones and a number of SIM cards

Members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Criminal Police Directorate, the Service for Combating Organized Crime, in cooperation with the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Sabac, arrested a five-member international criminal group that is accused of operating in the territory of Serbia and Italy and committing the crime of human trafficking.

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The police continue to look for another person connected to the case.

Z.T., S.I., B.S., D.A. from Sabac, and M.B. from Loznica have been arrested.

They are under suspicion of, from the first half of 2016 until the end of September 2022, taking advantage of difficult financial circumstances of several persons from the territory of Sabac, to lend them money at high interest rates, thus ushering them into debt slavery.

Then the victims were misled into thinking that they would be able to pay back that money - with the interest rate constantly increasing - by begging for money in Italy.

The victims would give the money they received in this way to the members of this criminal group, and those who did not want to beg were forced by threats. In this way, the suspects obtained illegal gains in the amount of tens of thousands of euros.

During the search of the suspects' apartments, the police found 14,640 euros, a small amount of Australian and American dollars, 560,000 dinars, eight mobile phones and a number of SIM cards.

The suspects will be detained for up to 48 hours after which they will be brought to the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Sabac, along with a criminal complaint.

(Telegraf.rs)