Three drivers transporting by car several foreign nationals who were supposed to leave the country illegally were caught by the authorities at the western border, in the town of Martihaz, and are being investigated for migrant smuggling, the Territorial Inspectorate of Border Police of Oradea informed on Friday.
The Romanian drivers, from Timis county, were transporting, in three means of transport, as passengers, two men and three women aged between 26 and 36 and five minor children aged between 2 months and 9 years, from Iraq, Nepal and Ethiopia, asylum seekers in Romania.
At the Nadlac II Border Crossing Point, four Ethiopian citizens, having legally entered Romania, were found hidden in two trucks, driven by a Turkish and a Bulgarian, among textiles and household appliances, transported on the Greece - Germany route. Four other migrants from Ethiopia, Pakistan and Nepal, having legally entered Romania, were also found at Nadlac I Border Crossing Point, in a truck driven by a Bulgarian.
Finally, five Bangladeshi citizens, who entered Romania legally, were detected by border police in the Sannicolau Mare sector, near Cenad, Timis county, while trying to cross the border fraudulently into Hungary, in order to reach Western Europe.
The five foreign nationals, spotted after getting out of a Romanian-registered car driven by a Romanian national, fled towards the Hungarian border, but were stopped by border police. All five had entered the country legally on work visas.