The trafficking network of migrants of Vietnamese origin, destroyed with the support of EUROPOL

DIICOT prosecutors ordered the detention of 7 defendants and measures of judicial control against 4 others, investigated for committing the crimes of forming an organized, cross-border criminal group and migrant trafficking.

In the case, investigations are being carried out to document the crimes of migrant trafficking and the establishment of a criminal group organized for the purpose of fraudulently crossing the state border of Romania by persons of Vietnamese citizenship.

The criminal case was registered in 2019, as a result of the ex officio notification of the border police and police colleagues from the DCCO, regarding a criminal group formed by Romanian and Vietnamese citizens, who, starting in September 2019, initiated and constituted an organized criminal group, guiding, guiding, transporting, transferring and harboring Vietnamese citizens for the purpose of fraudulently crossing the state border of Romania.

Based on the delegation of the DIICOT prosecutor, the border police and the DCCO police jointly carried out specific activities in order to administer the evidence in question, 13 detections of illegal transports with approximately 100 migrants of Vietnamese origin were carried out . Some of them were spotted at the Romanian-Hungarian border, hidden in cargo vehicles, in conditions that endangered their lives and bodily integrity.

According to the research, the criminal group was coordinated by several Vietnamese and Romanian citizens, some of them settled in Romania, who created a well-organized criminal chain, with ramifications in several states in Eastern Europe, with the well-defined goal of trafficking migrants of Vietnamese origin in European countries such as Germany, the Czech Republic, France or Great Britain. Migrants come from the category of those in Romania with legal work visas, recruited through social networks or directly from airports in Romania at the time of their arrival to carry out legal gainful activities, in order to fraudulently access European states, being trafficked in this meaning by group members.

To document the case, he benefited from the support of EUROPOL , with a constant exchange of information with partners from Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Vietnam .

During the investigative activities carried out as part of the police operation in Romania, evidentiary material was identified and administered regarding a number of 20 suspicious persons, Romanian and Vietnamese citizens, located in the area of ​​the Municipality of Bucharest and in the counties of Buzău, Ilfov, Constanța and Hunedoara , investigated for committing the crimes of migrant trafficking and constituting an organized criminal group .

As a result of the criminal investigation activities, it was found that the Vietnamese migrants recruited by the members of the criminal group were temporarily transferred from the workplaces located all over Romania to various safe- house locations within the radius of the Municipality of Bucharest, where, for optimization of transport, the suspicious persons gathered groups of 8-10 migrants, which they later loaded into means of transport such as vans or trucks, most of the time having compartments specially created for concealment, endangering the life and integrity of the migrants. For the services offered, the members of the criminal group charged between 4,000 and 8,000 euros , depending on the country of destination, sums of money that were paid in Vietnam by the members of the migrants’ families remaining in the country of origin, most of the time through indebtedness under burdensome conditions.

As a result of the nine home searches carried out within the radius of the city of Bucharest and the counties of Buzău, Ilfov and Hunedoara, the sums of 239,000 lei, 52,400 euros, 2,500 USD, 4 cars with a total market value of 100,000 euros, a pistol with unlicensed gases, mobile communication devices, numerous documents, as well as other means of evidence.

During this day, the rights and liberties judge of the Bucharest Court will be notified, with the proposal of preventive arrest for six of the defendants and house arrest for the seventh, for a period of 30 days.

The house searches within the radius of the Municipality of Bucharest and the counties of Ilfov, Constanța and Hunedoara were carried out with the support of EUROPOL, an institution that sent a mobile team to the site to support the Romanian authorities for the real-time verification of the data and information obtained with the opportunity to carry out field activities.

The documentation of the criminal activity was carried out with the specialized support of the Directorate of Special Operations within the IGPR.