SOFIA (Reuters) - Turkey has charged three Bulgarians with illegal migrant trafficking and assisting a criminal organization, the Bulgarian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

The three were detained on Friday and held in custody in the northwestern Turkish city of Edirne pending investigations, a ministry statement said

Last week the Bulgarian authorities smashed a gang suspected of smuggling migrants into Western Europe.

Eight people, including two Pakistanis, were charged with smuggling offences after they transported migrants, mainly Pakistanis, Afghans and Iraqis, from Turkey into Romania and then on to Hungary and Austria.

Bulgaria has built a fence on its border with its Balkan neighbor Turkey and has bolstered its border controls to prevent inflows of illegal migrants.