Representatives of the Slovenian and Croatian Police met on the initiative of the Slovenian Police, today, 9 August 2024, at Obrežje to discuss the current irregular migration management and migrant smuggling measures. Slovenian and Croatian police share active operational cooperation on the national and the regional and local levels, with the focus on coordinated operations and the solutions to improve the situation regarding the prevention of irregular migration. Because irregular migration is closely connected with organised people smuggling crime, the meeting was also attended by representatives of the criminal police.

In March, several days of tight controls were carried out at the common state border covering the area of several police administrations on both sides of the border. The closer surveillance was carried out with the view to prevent and detect unauthorised crossing of the internal border, to verify the legality of residence and to prevent and detect cross-border crime, . We will continue to ensure effective control of irregular migration by stepping up controls, redeploying staff to the busiest areas and adapting our activities in line with the latest developments regarding the irregular border crossings.

The Slovenian police are successfully taking all the necessary measures to prevent, detect and investigate irregular migration, including the detection of organised crime groups involved in people smuggling. This year, by 7 August 2024, the police had dealt with 314 cases (201 in the same period last year) in which 349 migrant smugglers (343 foreigners and 6 Slovenian citizens) with 1,953 irregular migrants had been arrested. 320 migrant smugglers were taken into custody. The detined migrant smugglers are predominantly citizens of Ukraine, Romania, Georgia, Turkey and Poland.

In the first seven months of this year (1 January to 31 July 2024), the Slovenian police dealt with 25,786 unauthorised entries, the majority of which, 25,092, were at the internal border with Croatia. The majority of the foreigners concerned are nationals of Syria (8,794), Afghanistan (3,728), Turkey (2,220), Morocco (1,978), Bangladesh (1,389), Pakistan (1,039), India (934), Nepal (787), Egypt (723) and Russia (527).