People smuggling is on a roll, with a Romanian caught with 24 migrants

A local court has ordered the detention of a Romanian driver who attempted to smuggle 24 illegal migrants from Hungary to Slovenia, hiding them in his truck “under inhuman circumstances”, a spokeswoman of the Zala County Prosecutor’s Office said on Monday.

The 39-year-old driver arranged to meet the group of Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan migrants near Arad, Romania and hid them in small spaces inside the vehicle’s compartment, Judit Janky said. Hungarian customs officers conducted an inspection at a parking lot on motorway M70 at Csörnyeföld near the border with Slovenia last Thursday and discovered the migrants squeezed in the compartment without getting sufficient fresh air, water and food, she said.

The Romanian driver was taken into custody on charges of people smuggling and physical abuse over the weekend, Janky said.