STA, 13 November 2018 - The increase in migrations has not led to higher crime rates in the border areas, but in the capital Ljubljana crime involving asylum seekers has increased, according to police figures presented at a session of the parliamentary Commission for the Oversight of Intelligence and Security Services on Tuesday.
The commission examined rumours of a spike in crime, but statistics for the police districts Novo Mesto and Koper, where the bulk of migrants are caught, do not bear that out, according to commission chair Matej Tonin.
But a spike in criminal acts, in particular theft and drug offences, perpetrated by asylum seekers has been recorded in Ljubljana and police said they would increase presence of officers in hot spots in the capital
But beyond petty crime, Tonin stressed that police have arrested 169 human traffickers so far this year, of which 29 Slovenian citizens and 140 foreigner nationals.
Slovenian police have registered almost 8,000 illegal border crossings so far this year, with the biggest groups coming from Pakistan, Algeria and Morocco.
Roughly half of them were returned to Croatia, while the majority of the others "evaporated in the course of the asylum procedure," according to Tonin.
