According to a report from the Novo Mesto Police Department, police pulled up a car and a van with Croatian licence plates in the village of Podbočje on Friday morning.
The cargo section of the van was empty, but police soon tracked down 34 migrants that the driver let out of the van just before being pulled over and made them scatter in the woods.
The migrants, citizens of Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Somalia, were in a poor state and dehydrated and one of them had to be taken to hospital.
Once the formalities were over, the police handed the migrants to their Croatian counterparts.
The 46-year-old van driver was charged with human trafficking and the 57-year-old car driver with being an accessory. The investigating judge remanded both in custody.
Illegal trafficking of foreigners carries up to five years in prison, but if the trafficker endangers human lives or health the sentence is up to eight years in prison plus a fine.
Since Friday, police in the border municipalities of Črnomelj and Metlika apprehended 32 illegal migrants.
The Koper Police Department has handled 78 cases of illegal crossing of the border since Friday. Eleven migrants have applied for asylum.
Six resumed their journey into the destination country after paying the fine because they are EU residents or citizens. A navigation app was cited as the reason they crossed the border illegally.
Koper police also apprehended three guides of illegal migrants but the investigation is ongoing.
