Six foreign human smugglers have been handed prison sentences ranging between 1.5 years to 3.5 years by the regional court of Szekszárd, in southwest Hungary, the Tolna County chief prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.
Two Ukrainian, two Bulgarian and an Indian man, and a French woman were stopped by police on the M6 motorway and the M9 road as they were trying to transport groups of five to ten Syrians, Somalians, Pakistani and Afghan citizens to the Hungarian-Austrian border between November 7 and 20, the prosecutor’s office said.
Four of them were members of a human smuggling ring and they acted on instruction, with a view to financial gains, the statement said.
The court handed out the rulings in an accelerated procedure and all six defendants have been expelled from Hungary.
The ruling in not final, appeals have been submitted.