Serbian police have made a significant progress in increasing the number of uncovered illegal immigrants, given that it detected 6790 illegal immigrants during the first quarter of 2014, whereas throughout the last year they detected as much as 8570, Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Michael Davenport said.

Addressing the twinning national conference “Cyber-crime and the use of information technology in irregular migration” Davenport said Serbia was a main route for these criminal activities and represented a transit country to the EU states, adding that organised criminal groups were also using illegal imigrants for drug distribution, or traffic them for labour and sexual exploitation.

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These groups represent a part of the international network, using highly sophisticated information technologies in order to develop their criminal activities, whereas the Internet becomes an increasingly used tool for establishing contact between an illegal immigrant and the person offering help, said Davenport.

Serbian Police Director Milorad Veljović said the public should be explained that a prevention system for misuse of information technologies has not been developed yet, and, in order to protect victims, Serbian police has to change, develop investigation methods, apply new knowledges, as well as connect globally.

The twinning project ”Establishing an effective system for preventing and combating illegal migration in the Republic of Serbia” was launched in January 2013. The project is funded by the EU with 1 million euros and implemented in cooperation with UK and Czech Republic.