Police Disrupted Crime Ring for Trafficking of Migrants through Sofia Airport
For the first time, the security services in Bulgaria disrupted an organized criminal ring, that was involved in trafficking of migrants through Sofia airport.
Six people, including two Bulgarian border police officers have been arrested in an operation targeting organized criminal group for trafficking migrant through Sofia airport, Bulgaria’s Chief Prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov said on 26th of May.
For the first time, the security services in Bulgaria disrupted an organized criminal ring, that was involved in trafficking of migrants through Sofia airport.
Two other of the arrested are the alleged organizers of the ring, foreign citizens, who have resided in the country for approximately 10 and more years. The other two are people who have taken advantage of the ring, the Chief Prosecutor added.
The operation was conducted at Sofia Airport last night, 25th of May.
The organized criminal group included two citizens of Bangladesh with a status of foreigners staying in Bulgaria, two border police officers who were detained and two migrants who had entered the country.
A press conference of the Special Prosecutor's Office revealed that the investigative actions were on-going.
By the end of the day, there may be further charges and more arrests of people involved in this criminal scheme, which, according to the head of the specialized prosecutor's office, Ivan Geshev, is a threat to the national security of the country. According to Geshev, through this trafficking ring, “even the head of Al-Qaeda” could have been brought into Bulgaria, and from here to the EU.
“In practice, the trafficking of foreigners involved people arriving from different destinations. The person most recently detained arrived from Cyprus at Sofia Airport, with irregular documents but had been admitted by Border Police. The fee, if I could call it this way, for the trafficking of foreigner was 5,000 euro per person and the fee received by a border police officer was 4,000 leva (about 2000 euro), the chief Prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov explained.
To a BNT question about what happens after these citizens come to Bulgaria, Tsatsarov said that this was yet to be established. “These citizens, in principle, after entering Bulgaria, the goal is to enter Bulgaria, to settle here or, in most cases, to simply to look for a way, though which they go to Western Europe”, he added.
In his words, the operation was conducted in difficult conditions. “The airport is not an area in which it is possible to carry out surveillance and any other means of surveillance by which crimes can be documented. But I also thank the Directorate for Combating Orgnaised Crime and the Specialized Public Prosecutor's Office. For the first time there is a ring for trafficking foreigners through the airport, " said Sotir Tsatsarov.
Valentin Radev, Minister of the Interior said that a large amount of money was found and searches were being made. He added that the operation was headed by the specialized prosecutor's office and included experts from the State Agency for National Security (SANS), the Sofia Directorate of the Ministry of Interior and a department of the Interior Ministry.
Mladen Marinov, Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Interior sadi thatr currently, due to reduction of the migratory pressure, the “business environment” wass narrowing. “There are competing groups that still work, but at the moment the one that was disrupted, was one of the most serious among them that works not only on the territory of the country. It covers the entire line for moving people from Syria through Turkey to Western Europe,"Marinov added.
