The Finnish Guard believe they have managed to prove for the first time a connection between several different attempts at trafficking in humans, where the subjects have been Chinese.
On Monday the Vantaa District Court started handling a human trafficking case, which - according to the Border Guard - is connected to two previous attempts.
"This is the first time a link has been established between several cases of trafficking in humans via Finland. The same organisation lies behind them all", says deputy chief of section Petteri Partanen of the Helsinki Border Inspection Unit.
The accused in the Vantaa District Court case is a 35-year-old man from Hong Kong, who was escorting one Chinese woman and two Chinese men from China to Finland. Their alleged final destination was Poland.
The three were caught already in Hong Kong while trying to proceed to their connecting flight. The Hong Kong man flew to Finland by himself, where he was detained with forged travel documents in connection with the border crossing formalities.
According to the prosecutor Mikko Sipilä, the case is related to another incident earlier this year, where a 44-year-old Chinese man was sentenced to prison for aggravated organising of two illegal entries to the country. The court heard among other things that both escorts allegedly had identical shoulder bags with concealed pockets.
The man in the earlier case was caught at Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport, while trying to bring a company of four Chinese people to Europe through Finland. Previously, he had already managed to smuggle in three other Chinese.
The prosecution demands the Hong Kong man be sentenced to a minimum of a year's imprisonment.
