It’s a sort of relay as migrants are passed from one group of smugglers to another as they make their way through the Balkans, the smuggler, who called himself Max, told RT’s Maria Finoshina.
He said his team picks up people who cross from Serbia, near the Bosnian town of Bijeljina, and helps them cover some 340km to reach the town of Cazin on the border with Croatia, which is an EU member state.
The groups, consisting of between five and 20 asylum seekers, are being transported “at night through some wooded areas,” according to the smuggler, who was interviewed for an upcoming film on the migrant issue by RT’s documentary channel, RTD.
The migrants reach Bosnia and Herzegovina “through Serbia and also through small or big boats where they would sneak in. They also sometimes travelled by lorries – they get under a lorry. It’s a tough road,” Max said.
The man insisted that his team does its job “honestly” and always delivers the people to the planned destinations. But he knows of instances when other traffickers mistreated the asylum seekers, “tricked them, stole from them, left them on the side of the road.”