Berlin - Police in Berlin smashed a human trafficking ring and detained 26 people suspected of smuggling Vietnamese into Germany, officials said Wednesday.

The gang was picked up after months of investigation and a search of more than 20 apartments in the capital and the nearby states of Brandenburg and Saxony.

The detainees, most of them Vietnamese, are accused of smuggling more than 130 of their countrymen via Russia and the Czech Republic to Berlin from where they were taken to France and Britain. (dpa)