At around 2 am on Monday 24 January, a police car from the Udine Police Headquarters, during a control service, noticed a car with an Austrian license plate stopped on the edge of Viale Europa Unita, from which two men were getting out. The agents stopped them, discovering that they were two Egyptian citizens without documents, who had just entered Italy from Austria. On board the vehicle were two Tunisian brothers, the driver, resident in Vienna, and the passenger in Lombardy.

With the help of another Volante, the four were taken to the Police Headquarters to proceed with the identification and clarify what immediately began as an illegal entry into the national territory, preferred by the two Tunisians.

The two Egyptian citizens, clandestine, had been identified by the Austrian authorities the previous Saturday and when they were certainly still near Vienna on the evening of Sunday 23 January, shopping in a shop (he still had the receipt in his pocket). On board, in addition to clothing and personal effects, the officers also found two pairs of license plates, Austrian and Belgian, probably used by the driver for the illegal transport of migrants.

The two Tunisian brothers, who gave no explanation for their presence in the city, were arrested for aiding and abetting illegal immigration and taken to prison. The two illegal immigrants, who had declared that they had entered Italy to look for work, having no residence permit, were expelled. The car was seized and the sum of 865 euros found on the two passeurs, probable proceeds from the ‘passage’ offered, as well as receipts and telephones useful for the continuation of the investigation.

Yesterday, after the arrests were validated, there being the danger of a repeat of the crime, the investigating judge of the Court of Udine ordered the measure of precautionary custody in prison for his brother residing in Austria, while house arrest for the one living in Italy.

“The arrest of two passers-by in Udine shows once again how necessary it is to stop the flow of illegal immigrants along the Balkan route. A flow that has nothing to do with humanitarian aspects and hospitality, but that generates criminal trafficking and a exploitation without any possibility of integration “, says safety councilor Pierpaolo Roberti. “In this case, as often happens, we also observe how the passeurs themselves are immigrants who, thanks to uncontrolled immigration that makes any form of integration impossible, evidently – underlines Roberti – bring nothing on our territory but crime”.

“The occasion is propitious to thank all the police forces for the important work they carry out every day. The hope – concludes the commissioner – is that their professionalism will be accompanied by the instruments guaranteed by the State to intervene in an always more effective in contrasting these ignoble trafficking “.