Austrian customs and police at the Rosenbach exit of the A11 Karawankentunnel (Carinthia) arrested a 43-year-old Croatian driver on 6 October 2026 after he tried to flee a routine outbound check into Slovenia. Slovenian officers stopped the vehicle near Ljubljana and escorted it back to the Austrian side, where a joint search uncovered a vacuum-packed bundle of cash hidden beneath the boot lining. Investigators suspect money-laundering: the driver gave contradictory explanations for the origin of the funds, and database queries revealed active arrest warrants in Germany, Austria and Croatia. The cash was confiscated and the suspect was questioned with an interpreter at Villach’s Police Detention Centre. After consultation with the Klagenfurt prosecutor he was released pending trial, but the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum imposed an entry ban. Practice point: the case is a reminder that Austria’s Fremdenpolizei routinely cooperates with customs to enforce EU cash-control Regulation 2018/1672, which requires travellers to declare €10,000 or more when crossing external or – where internal controls are in place – certain internal borders. Employers moving staff and project money across the S-Bahn-linked Slovenia route should brief drivers to declare high-value assets and expect intensified inspections until at least March 2027, the current end-date of Austria’s re-introduced internal border regime. Carinthia’s Landespolizeidirektion says that since September, four similar cash-smuggling incidents have been detected at the Karawanken corridor, totalling almost €600,000 seized.
