Russian officials surprised at reports of human trafficking

Fresh arrests at Vaalimaa border crossing

print this

Reports of large numbers of Georgian women travelling through Russia and on via Finland to other European Union countries have come as a surprise to Russian security officials.
      The head of the Russian Border Guard, Colonel Vladimir Pronichev, described the situation as problematic and contradictory. "The problem for the officials is that the illegal border crossings take place legally."
      He says that there are always people who will help in the acquisition of genuine travel documents. It is only after the borders are crossed that the activities become illegal.
     
The head of the Finnish Frontier Guard, Vice Admiral Jaakko Smolander, says that the most efficient possible way to prevent crime is the exchange of criminal surveillance information along the whole EU external border. "At this border it is as good as it can be."
      Smolander adds that the case of the Georgian women should have been noticed earlier, in spite of their legal documents. This is a method that has been used for getting perhaps half a million people into the EU.
     
Meanwhile, four Georgian men were arrested yesterday at the Vaalimaa frontier crossing in the southern part of the border, on suspicion of human trafficking.
      Shortly before noon yesterday a bus arrived at the border crossing carrying the four men, in addition to 48 women.
      Suspicions were aroused when officials noticed that the bus was en route from Georgia to Central Europe, and that all of those on the bus carried Swedish visas that had been granted at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow.
     
Only last week it was revealed that numerous busloads of Georgian women with Swedish or Italian visas have passed through Finland in a similar manner in the past three years. The buses have returned to Georgia almost empty, and it is suspected that the women have become victims of trade in humans, with many of them possibly taken into the sex industry in Central Europe.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finland found to be transit point for traffic in women from east to west (11.3.2005)

Helsingin Sanomat