Police made simultaneous raids on three restaurants in downtown Helsinki on Friday night. The aim was to search for illegal alien residents. Four Russian women and one Zambian woman were caught and one Russian woman was fined.
The targets of the raid were Alcatraz, Mermaid, and Mikado. The three nightclubs have recently been mentioned in the press because of probes police have conducted into suspected prostitution at Helsinki restaurants.
Participating in the raid were around 30 police officers of the Helsinki Police Department and the Helsinki Criminal Police, as well as Customs and Border Control officers specialised in permits and licences. This time the raid focused only on illegal residence.
Inspector Lasse Jortikka of the Helsinki Police Department admitted that the raid was related to the current investigations into forgeries and pimping.
The women who were taken into custody on Friday night either had no valid visa or their passport was missing. Furthermore, one of the women had been previously denied entry to Finland.
The women were to spend the night at the police lockup at Helsinki's main police headquarters in Pasila, and a possible deportation order was to be carried out already on Saturday.
"The women may be in a situation where someone has taken their passports and has forced them to work until they get caught by police. Hopefully the police can be of use for some of them at least in this respect", said Jortikka. It is apparently very difficult to find out what the situation really is, as these women are not talking.
