Upper Austria and Germany

Two arrests during joint border control

Head of operations Gottfried Hohensinn and 30 police officers from Upper Austria and Germany checked several hundred vehicles.(Bild: Scharinger Daniel, Krone KREATIV)

Seven hours, 23 police officers from the PUMA immigration and border police unit, seven officers from neighboring Bavaria and two drug-sniffing dogs: that's how you could sum up the bilateral priority check on Wednesday on the B 148 in St. Peter am Hart. 

The aim: to combat cross-border crime. This is because the international traffic route is used to travel east from Germany, Belgium or England. The police were mainly targeting vehicle theft, theft of stolen goods and drug-related crime.

Number plates removed
"We arrested a 54-year-old Croatian man who is serving an open prison sentence and a woman for illegal residence," says head of operations Gottfried Hohensinn from the Tumeltsham police station. In addition, one driver was caught without a driver's license and three drivers were unable to produce a valid vehicle registration. They had to hand in their license plates on the spot.

Traffic jam due to checks
Several hundred vehicles, including a Flix bus, were checked between 3 pm and 10 pm. In addition to the arrests and charges, the officers also issued 22 organ mandates. Each check took an average of a quarter of an hour - due to the very high volume of traffic, there was sometimes a backlog.