Serbian police said on Tuesday that they have arrested 17 people and dismantled a human trafficking ring suspected of organising the transfer of hundreds of clandestine immigrants to the European Union countries. The migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Tunisia and Sudan were smuggled between July and November, the Serbian Interior Ministry said in a statement. The suspects took the migrants in groups of between 18 and 50 people from northern Serbia over the border to neighbouring Hungary, it added. The 17 suspects will remain in custody, pending a judicial investigation. Serbia lies on a Balkans route often used by criminals to smuggle people, drugs and weapons into the European Union.