Seven members of an organized criminal group suspected of illegal border crossings and human trafficking were arrested in operation Tisa.

Serbia's Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told Tanjug that the group is also suspected of smuggling 18 Kosovo Albanians, including nine children. Fifteen of them drowned while trying to cross the Tisa River on October 14, 2009.

According to Dacic, after more than a year of work, the police arrested the group's organizer Josip Djurasevic and members Atila Sipos, Joso Karimovic, Goran Maravic, Jovanka Koledin, all from Subotica, as well as Abedin and Ardin Iseni from Bujanovac.

The operatation was carried out by the Directorate for fighting organized crime, in cooperation with the Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office, the Gendarmerie and the Kikinda Police Administration, Dacic said.

"The smuggling chain saw a lot of traffic, with several dozen illegal migrants smuggled into Hungary every month. They were first transported from Kosovo to Konculj, and then to Subotica, where they were hidden," Dacic said.

He specified that they would then be smuggled into Hungary when the chance arose, across the Tisa and the Horgos and Kelebija border crossings.

Dacic said that during the Tisa operation, the police used information obtained in cooperation with Hungary and Austria, organized through the regional SECI center in Bucharest.