Poland’s interior minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, admitted that Poland has a problem with criminal groups composed of foreigners. The politician, who belongs to the left-center Civic Platform (KO) party of Donald Tusk, is now talking of deportations.
“There is brutal crime being imported. There is not a week that goes by without news of brutal fights, brutal actions. Most often, these are actions between members of these gangs,” said Tomasz Siemoniak.
“We are talking about hard crime here, which we have to deal with,” he added.
Minister of Interior and Administration: We are talking about hard crime
Siemoniak commented on the problem of the activities of criminal groups composed of foreigners on Tuesday on Polish Radio Programme I.
“Police data is clear foreign gangs are trying to enter Poland, take over various areas of crime: drug trafficking, weapons, extortion, and they also use brutal methods,” noted Siemoniak.
Siemoniak was also asked about the issue of deporting migrants.
“We will inform people about this in the next few days. Last year’s level was about 8,000 deportations. This is the scale of showing our policy, especially when it comes to those people who commit crimes or are associated with crimes,” said the politician of the Civic Coalition.
As he emphasized, there were over 8,000 deportations from Poland.
“The fact that something is less talked about or someone does not have full knowledge does not mean that facts are not happening. This number was large, it is a lot, if you count it in planes or deliveries to the Ukrainian border, because it is still, due to the number of Ukrainian citizens in Poland, in various categories it concerns them the most,” emphasized the interior ministry.
As announced at the beginning of February, the Polish interior ministry indicated that for suspects of crimes committed in Poland in 2024, foreigners constituted 5 percent.
Georgians appear to have an especially high rate of offending and have built criminal organizations in the country.
“In 2024, the Polish police detained 1,895 Georgian citizens. By court decision, 136 were taken into custody. In total, as of the end of 2024, there are 322 Georgians in Polish penitentiary centers. Based on the decision issued by the Border Guard on the obligation to return, 2,589 Georgian citizens were expelled from Poland last year,” said Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior and Administration, on platform X in the same month.
