Last night, a minibus with 13 illegal migrants was caught in Krāslava. What makes this incident particularly interesting is that the minibus was made to look like a vehicle of the State Border Guard, as reported by the Ministry of the Interior.
In an interview to LTV programme Rīta panorāma, Minister of the Interior Rihards Kozlovskis said there were two traffickers caught in the minibus – the driver and the person sitting next to him. Neither is a citizen of Latvia.
He explained that such cases are indicative of just how extensive the network of traffickers of illegal migrants truly is, and this is an illegal business worth billions. “If we look at Aizkraukle incident, then, had these people been able to realise their plan, they would have earned considerable amounts of money. This means these people are prepared to take risks,” said the minister.
The politician noted that officers of the Latvian State Border Guard work tirelessly and professionally. The frequent cases of people being detained for human trafficking are proof of this.
The illegal transportation of migrants is international in scope. The involvement of Latvian residents cannot be ruled out either.
Kozlovskis mentioned the situation with illegal border perpetrators wave-like – there are days when everything is calm on the border and there are days when large numbers of border perpetrators are detained. This year so far, Latvian border guards have detained more than 5 000 illegal border perpetrators.
As previously reported, on the 8th of October the Latvian State Border Guard noticed and then caught a minibus carrying dozens of illegal migrants from Belarus. The minibus was outfitted to resemble vans used by Latvian State Police, complete with fake stripes and fake registration plates.