Four Moldovans were detained for illegally transporting 100 migrants from Asia to the EU
The suspects are from Chisinau, Cahul, Orhei, Ocnita, and are between 23 and 34 years old. They have both Moldovan and Romanian citizenship.
Another suspect is wanted, reports jurnal.md
The Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (POPOD) formulated and charged them with organizing illegal migration. Most of them cooperate with law enforcement agencies, and two admitted their guilt.
These five were drivers (some of them did not have a driver’s license), one of them was an organizer in a criminal group consisting of 19 other suspects – citizens of Romania, whose searches were carried out in the counties of Ilfov and Dambovita under the direction of prosecutors from the Organized Crime Investigation Department and terrorism (DIICOT) in Galati.
Upon arrival in Romania, Moldovan drivers received large cars registered in Romania, France and Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary, with seats intended for the disguised transport of migrants (5-20 migrants in a car), including telephone numbers for contacting the destinations indicated in the applications , and also received instructions from the Romanian organizers about which state they were to pick up and transport the migrants.
To take advantage of the illegal service, migrants paid members of the criminal group €3,000–5,000 for transport, which was usually carried out in two cars – the one in which the migrants were transported, and another car driven by another member of the criminal group, which was used to check the police presence along the route.
Transportation sometimes lasted for months, since in most cases migrants crossed five or six countries (Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, from where they were transported to other countries, depending on logistics capabilities, through Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria).
As a result of the searches, telephones containing conversations about organizing illegal migration, documents on bank accounts in the EU, draft notes, documents relating to the deportation of one of the defendants from France and his detention in Hungary for organizing illegal migration, as well as detention were seized from five Moldovan defendants. another accused in Croatia for the same crime.
The operation was carried out under the auspices of the European Union agency Eurojust and the European SELEC Centre. A total of 20 searches were carried out in Moldova and Romania on the basis of a joint Moldovan-Romanian investigation team. Investigations continue, and at this time the presumption of innocence applies to everyone.
