Coast Guard reveals human trafficking gang

The Finnish Coast Guard has revealed an organised gang involved in human trafficking from Greece to Finland and other parts of the Europe.

The gang that consists of residents in Finland and Greece is suspected of attempting illegal travelling of undocumented refugees to Finland and other European countries, said the Gulf of Finland Coast Guard in a press release on Thursday.

Tipped by the Estonian police, the Coast Guard initiated investigations into aggravated illegal entry, aggravated counterfeiting, and state border crime in mid July

The Estonian police held a person at Tallinn Airport, when he tried to travel to the United Kingdom from Estonia via Ireland with a forged British passport. He confessed to the Estonian police that a Finnish resident was involved in supplying the forged passport. The Finnish resident also guided the detainee from Helsinki to Tallinn.

From the investigation the Coast Guard discovered that a criminal gang has been running operations in Finland and Greece since at least the autumn of 2019 and has been involved in illegal entry using forged Finnish and British passports.

At the end of October, a suspected member of the gang was arrested at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport along with a number of Finnish passports, residence permit cards, Finnish identity cards and social and health insurance cards on his way to Greece.

“Some of these documents found in the person’s possession had been reported as stolen, but some are suspected of having been sold to the gang,” said Jukka Tekokoski of the Gulf of Finland Coast Guard Crime Prevention Unit in the Thursday’s release.

The law-enforcing agencies conducted several raids at different houses at various places in Helsinki and arrested a number of people in this connection, the press release added.