15-03-2019
The operative agents of Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland conducted a large-scale special operation and detained a group of the criminals who illegally transported illegal migrants across the border of Ukraine to the EU.
This was reported by the press service of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.
It is noted that the border guards of the four countries have established 35 persons involved in the illegal criminal group, citizens of Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Slovakia and Belarus.
The offenders were engaged in illegal transportation of immigrants from South-East Asia across the state border to the neighboring countries, in particular the Slovak Republic, the Republic of Poland and Hungary, with a view to their further delivery to the countries of Western Europe, namely Germany.
According to the SBGS, the sphere of activity of criminals stretched for hundreds and thousands of kilometers from the border on Russia.
Then, the groups of illegal migrants were formed in the cities of Kiev and Odessa, after which they were secretly delivered to Transcarpathian region for illegal transportation across the state border with the help of local guides to the countries of the European Union.
Afterwards they carried out transit transportation of the “travelers” to the territory of Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic up to Berlin and Dresden.
It is reported that members of the criminal group came to the attention of the law enforcement officers in spring of last year, after which the SBGS, SSU and the National Police performed the operation on exposing the schemes of the illegal migration channel.
In particular, 7 criminal proceedings were opened, eight defendants were informed of suspicion, and two criminal proceedings on charges of 2 persons were sent to the court.
The SBGSU noted that despite the measures of law enforcement, both in Ukraine and in neighboring Slovakia and Poland, the activities of the criminal group did not stop, so it was decided to hold a joint special operation under the conditional name “Long Way”.
Within the framework of international cooperation, Ukrainian operatives have established active cooperation with colleagues from the Czech Republic, where the main figures of the criminal group, the vast majority of whom come from Ukraine, lived permanently.
It is noted that during the complex of activities in cooperation with the operational units of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland as a whole 16 episodes of illegal smuggling of illegal migrants were documented, mostly citizens of Vietnam and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, across the state border of Ukraine.
Their total number was about 100 persons. For each of them an income of more than 2500 US dollars was received.
It is reported that the joint group “Long Way” on March 11 simultaneously performed a number of searches and detained and interrogated organizers of the specified cross-border criminal group.
In particular, it is reported that the searches were conducted at 7 addresses of the defendants in the settlements of Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Transcarpathian regions.