Latvian Police Arrest People Smuggler Linked to Migrant Deaths in Austria

A 19-year-old Latvian national has been arrested in Latvia this week as part of an investigation into a people-smuggling gang linked to the deaths of two Syrian migrants in Austria in October.

The 19-year-old is believed to have been the driver of a van that was found along the Austrian-Hungarian border in Burgenland in October, in which police found two dead Syrian migrants. The Latvian is believed to be part of a gang that smuggled primarily Syrians and Afghans to Austria.

The teen was arrested on December 8th and now awaits extradition to Austria. Others in the people-smuggling network who have been arrested in recent weeks include 12 who were arrested in Austria and eight more placed into custody in Hungary, newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports.

Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner commented on the arrest of the 19-year-old, praising the international cooperation that led to his arrest. “Thanks to this close-knit network of security authorities and the good international cooperation of the police, no perpetrator can feel safe on the run,” Karner said.

According to Kronen Zeitung, the two deceased Syrians were part of a group of 29 Syrians and Kurds crammed into the van that was abandoned by people smugglers after Austrian soldiers stopped the vehicle. The two victims are said to have suffocated to death.

The case echoes a similar incident in 2015 that was one of the events which sparked the European migrant crisis after a group of 71 migrants were found dead in a lorry that was found by the side of a motorway in Austria after arriving from Hungary.

In 2018, four people smugglers, one Afghan national and three Bulgarians, who had abandoned the migrants to die of suffocation, were sentenced to 25 years in prison each.

While each attempted to blame another for the deaths, it was later revealed that phone conversations between them showed that they heard the men, women, and children screaming for help in the back of the lorry before they abandoned it.

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