Austria as a Hub

Drugs, Weapons, People: Hooligans as Smugglers

Drugs, heavy weapons, human smuggling: Polish hooligans caused quite a stir even away from soccer stadiums.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Polizei, Daniel Scharinger)

Violent soccer fans have made a fortune as human traffickers: Hundreds of Syrians are said to have been smuggled into the EU via Austria by tightly organized Polish criminals—in addition to their drug trafficking operations. So far, 27 arrests have been made as part of “Operation Ranger.”

Otherwise, hooligans are mostly known for being masked in the stands and storming the field—setting off flares inside or outside stadiums and brawling with rival soccer fans. But one Polish group had turned to the booming drug trade—and the smuggling of illegal immigrants via the Balkan route.

“Operation Ranger,” which has been underway since last year with the support of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) to combat this Polish criminal group, gained momentum in mid-September of last year at the Slovenian-Styrian border.

The smuggler himself came from a large refugee camp
When a stateless person with roots in one of the large Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East attempted to enter the country in a car with three refugees. Ten months later, the investigations conducted by the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office in cooperation with Belgian and Polish authorities—under the leadership of the Bavarian public prosecutor’s office in Traunstein—have yielded impressive results. A total of 27 suspects—all of whom are violent soccer fans—have now been arrested.

During raids, investigators seized not only heavy weapons and cash but also 280 kilograms of highly dangerous synthetic drugs worth approximately seven million euros. However, the hooligans’ lucrative “main line of business” was human trafficking. The gang is believed to have smuggled at least 300 Syrians through Austria into the EU over the course of two years.

Cell Phone Chats Exposed the Gang
One of the clues that ultimately led to the unmasking of this tightly organized and well-connected criminal group was, once again, incriminating cell phone chats—which investigators found on the phone of one of the human traffickers.