Operation MEDUSA

22 September 2015

Many police services are involved in the migration phenomenon. The (trans)migration programme, that was assigned to the General Directorate of Administrative Police within the framework of the 2012-2015 National Security Plan, aims at a large and comprehensive approach of this particularly topical phenomenon. In 2015, the police evolved from routine migration management towards a dynamic follow-up of transmigration flows by means of analyses, scenarios, briefings and presentations. This allows the Federal Police to react adequately to new problems that result from strongly increased flows of refugees and illegal transit migration. In the field, this dynamic follow-up resulted among other things in operation Medusa and actions against human smuggling. Calling in a mobile handling office to support frontline teams also fits within this approach.

Operation Medusa started on 22 September 2015. On a daily basis, the Federal Police carried out structural controls on a number of communications, more precisely on the main roads that transmigrants use, on the railway lines from Aachen and Maastricht and on air traffic.