Eindhoven airport is becoming a key location for people smuggling, a senior police officer told local broadcaster Omroep Brabant on Wednesday.

Immigration police chief Léon Slegers said Eindhoven is popular because of its proximity to France, Belgium and Germany.

‘It is attractive for all these countries,’ he said. In 2012, 31 cases of people smuggling were uncovered in Eindhoven, but this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg, Slegers said.

‘Some cases are linked and you can see a particular form of criminality emerging,’ he said. ‘Eindhoven airport focuses on low budget flights and that is attractive to criminals, particularly from Eastern Europe.’

Women who are smuggled into the Netherlands to work in the sex industry are often unwilling to go to the police ‘because they think they are corrupt,’ the police chief said.