About 80 percent were Russian-speaking, it said.
Tomasz Safjański, a former police officer and professor at WSB University in the southern city of Dąbrowa Górnicza, said the trend reflects the growing presence of eastern European criminal groups in Poland.
Statistics cited by the report indicate that while police dismantled fewer domestic gangs, the number of international groups—including Russian-speaking networks—has risen.
Safjański said the pace of growth among suspects from Belarus and Armenia is particularly concerning, with numbers increasing nearly fourfold and doubling respectively.
According to Rzeczpospolita, different groups tend to specialise in specific types of crime. Belarusian gangs are linked to cigarette smuggling, sometimes using weather balloons—a method authorities say may also be tied to hybrid warfare tactics.
Georgian groups are often associated with burglaries and the theft of luxury watches and diamonds, while Ukrainian networks are frequently linked to so-called "bank scam" fraud schemes.
"Eastern criminal activity is becoming increasingly difficult to detect," Safjański was quoted as saying.
"Beyond the violent incidents seen on the streets, these groups are expanding into cybercrime, human trafficking and complex financial and customs fraud," he added.
(gs)