Police arrest Chinese gang of people smugglers

Police say they have clamped down on a gang suspected of smuggling people from China to western Europe via the Czech Republic. The four Chinese nationals were arrested in a villa near Prague, where the illegal migrants were hidden from the authorities, often under inhumane conditions. The migrants paid 12,500 US dollars each to be transported to the Czech Republic through Russia, Ukraine and then Slovakia.

Meanwhile, police say the number of illegal migrants caught along the Czech-German border has dropped significantly. In 2005, some 1,200 people were detained by the Czech police along the 810 km border with Germany, which was half the number of people caught the year before.