Operation Mirage
Introduction
The SECI Regional Center is founded upon the Multilateral Agreement for Cooperation to prevent and combat trans-border crime signed in 1999 by 11 governments. The purpose of the Center is to improve regional law enforcement cooperation, through the joint activity of police and customs administrations of the different countries, by facilitating investigations, sharing experiences, establishing common operations, and continually evaluating and analyzing the crime situation in the region.
Recognizing that Trafficking of Human Beings (THB) and Illegal Migration (IM) are one of the most serious problems in Southeastern Europe, a great violation of human rights, and a crime that undermines an enduring stability in our region and also recognizing that these phenomena have a trans-border particularity and act through networks currently associated with other types of crimes such as drug trafficking or stolen vehicles smuggling, in May 2000 the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) Regional Center adopted as a priority to form a task force, with the mission designed to disrupt and combat THB and IM. In accordance with this effort, Romania was designated as the lead Coordinator to command and control its activities.
After two years of activity of this Task Force, the SECI Center management encouraged, at the beginning of year 2002, the idea of a regional operation, coordinated by Romania, with the following goals:
- To identify trafficked women in foreign countries through the coordinated activity of Law Enforcement agencies, international organizations, institutions, missions and NGO’s and to take efficient measures to insure their repatriation to their origin countries;
- To identify criminal groups and members of the groups that are dealing with trafficking of women;
- To initiate common investigations against criminal groups that are involved in trafficking in close cooperation with Law Enforcement agencies of the countries;
- To recognize smuggled people in foreign countries and to identify the criminal groups and members of the groups that are involved with smuggling of people through coordinated activity of the Law Enforcement agencies, international organizations, institutions, missions and NGO’s;
- To initiate common investigations against criminals and develop a closer cooperation among Law Enforcement agencies of the SECI countries and observers.
Operation Mirage was the SECI Center’s first attempt to conduct an aggressive and active regional operation for countering THB and IM.
Participating countries in this initiative identified and agreed on the principles of this regional initiative prior to the initiation of the operation.
Participating Countries
Police and related authorities from the following SECI member countries took part in Operation Mirage: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Greece, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, and Turkey.
The SECI Center members agreed to invite Ukraine, FR of Yugoslavia and the UN Mission in Kosovo as equal partners in this operation.
The Stability Pact Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings offered great support for Mirage Operation, attending all the preparatory meetings and providing a network of NGO’s ready to cooperate with law enforcement in assisting the identified victims.
In May 2001, a cooperation agreement between the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Regional SECI Center for Combating Trans-Border Crime was signed for the purpose of working together to assist victims and witnesses of trafficking. Thus IOM became one of the partners, their experience and expertise in assisting and repatriating victims of trafficking and migrants being recognized worldwide.
Interpol and Europol were invited to participate in the operation.
Last but not least, US State Department support should be mentioned, to include the FBI and INS active participation, especially during the preparatory phase of the operation.
Implementation Operation Mirage began as planned in the evening of Saturday, 7th September 2002. Hotels, discothèques, night-bars, parking lots, border points and other various places known to law enforcement as possibilities where criminal activity takes place were targeted and raids conducted during the first night throughout the region.
Subsequently, during the agreed period of the operation, all the participants operated according to their national plans and to the adopted methodology.
Police, border police, other appropriate law enforcement agencies and institutions such as ministries of finance, education and health were involved at the national level in the operation. At the same time IOM and NGO’s participated in the operation, as partners responsible for victim assistance, increasing the cooperation established.
Preventive measures and activities were undertaken during the operation to focus on recruitment and transportation of potential victims. For example, artistic management companies, transportation, employment agencies and others were targeted; strict controls being made regarding their activities and also at the border. As a result it was possible to stop many persons, women and illegal migrants, in their travels to Western countries. Also, many of the abovementioned companies were subjected to administrative measures taken against them such as fees, restriction of the operations, interdictions.
Approximately one hundred requests or messages from the countries were received at the SECI Center, on 24 hours basis, requesting identification confirmations in cases of potential victims of THB or suspected illegal migrants or information regarding identified persons. The staff promptly processed all the requests and messages.
Results
According to the reported data, Operation Mirage achieved the following encouraging results:
A. Concerning Human beings trafficking:
1. Controlled places - 20 558; Night clubs, discothèques, restaurants, border crossing points and other places were checked all over the region
2. Identified women - 1738; these persons were found in places such as the above mentioned, and were checked regarding their identity, the legal stay in the respective country as well as their presence at the controlled places and others.
3. Identified victims of trafficking - 237; from the total number of identified women 237 proved to be trafficked persons or potential victims of trafficking. 23 of them were assisted by IOM and NGOs, while the rest of them were subjected to preventive measures such as interdiction of exiting or entering a certain country.
4. Identified traffickers - 293; this figure represents the number of persons identified as being involved in trafficking of human beings as recruiters, transporters, hosts and pimps.
5. Cases for which criminal procedure has been undertaken - 293; investigations are continuing in many of these cases even after the operation ended, with the purpose to identify all the accomplices and members of networks.
6. Cases for which administrative measures have been undertaken - 2933 (fees, interdictions temporary imprisonment, expelling);
B. Concerning illegal migration:
During the operation, all over the region:
• illegal migrants identified 1762
• repatriated 369
• forged ID and travel documents 241
• smugglers 73
• criminal procedure initiated 153
• administrative measures 6113
(fees, interdictions, expelling, a/o)
Illegal immigrants were located:
• Iraq 45
• Afghanistan 36
• China 22
• Tanzania 3
• Sri-Lanka, Sudan, India
Final considerations
Operation MIRAGE was the first regionally coordinated and conducted activity within South Eastern Europe in the field of THB and IM, one of the most serious crimes in the region, which reached phenomenonal dimensions.
For the first time, Law Enforcement agencies, International Organizations such as IOM and Stability Pact as well as Non-governmental Organization worked together on a national and regional basis to combat THB and IM.
The results should be appreciated as positive and encouraging, showing that this kind of operation should be organized and conducted more often in the future as being one of the most active and aggressive methods of combating THB and IM.
The SECI Regional Center proved once more it has the capacity to organize and coordinate such an activity with the sole purpose to stimulate regional cooperation and combat organized crime as its ultimate goal.
Cases
In Albania the owner of a travel agency was arrested during Operation MIRAGE, because he tried to illegally transport 54 persons from Kosovo to Germany, using false German visas and demanding 1500 Euro from each person. Two Albanian citizens from the city of KORCA were arrested for trafficking of newborn babies, for the purpose of illegal adoption, selling two children in Greece for 2000 USD.
Croatia reported that, on the evening of 16.09. 2002 at the border-crossing Pasjak 5 citizens were identified with forged passports using the method of inserting their photos in original Slovakian passports. Documents were obtained from an unknown person from Novi Sad for 500 Euro each. Some of the persons had also forged driving licenses.
11 persons, all of them from Bosnia Herzegovina, were returned by the Slovenian Police at the border-crossing HARMICA. It was determined they had entered Croatia legally several days before, and then illegally crossed the border to Slovenia. 4 persons, from which 3 Croatian and one Slovenian, were arrested and charged criminally.
A new trend was observed in Greece: aliens with non-admittance from a border crossing point attempting to enter Greece through other border-crossing points. A case worth mentioning: Bulgarian citizens (women) were denied entry at Promachona, non-admittance marked in their passports, but they tried to enter again through the ports of Egoumenista and Patra, traveling from Italy, via Austria.
In Moldova a Turkish citizen was apprehended while he was attempting to transport three Moldavian women, ages from 18 to 24, for sexual exploitation purposes at Chisinau Airport to Turkey. A woman, Moldavian citizen, 25 years old, was identified as a recruiter and host for young girls to be sent to Turkey. Two potential victims were identified and prevented from departing Moldova.
Also in Chisinau, on private company premises, 33 persons from different localities of Moldova were found waiting to be transported to work abroad in Western Europe. After interviews and investigations it was determined that visas for the respective persons were obtained by fraudulent means: the mayor of a village sent a communication on behalf of the Mayor’s office to the European Parliament in Strasbourg with an official list of persons, civil servants, who wished to attend a conference on agriculture. The request was approved, and based on the invitation received, they managed to obtain Schengen visas at the Belgium Embassy in Moscow. Actually, the group intended to leave for Italy in order to remain illegally for work in the city of Padova. For these services, each person paid 1800 USD to the director of the private company. The mayor who compiled the list and the rest of the documents received a bribe from the director of 5000 USD and 500 Euro. Both the director and the mayor were arrested.
Romania reported the case of a group of Romanian traffickers who recruited 7 young girls, under 18, all of them Romanian citizens. The girls have been transported to Italy, being forced to prostitute themselves and making near 1500 Euro per day for the criminals. After cooperating with the Italian Police, two of the traffickers have been arrested in Italy, the third one being arrested in Romania on September 16.The girls have been rescued, two of them being already returned home.
Arresting solved another case initiated by the Romanian Police, for trafficking on human beings, on 13th of September, of a Romanian citizen, domiciled in Spain. He has recruited 4 young Romanian girls from Maramures County, intending to transport them in Spain with the purpose of sexual exploitation.
On 13.09.2002, in Hungary, at HEGYESHALOM BCP 4 Ukrainian citizens were captured with 5 minibuses. They intended to smuggle 16 Ukrainian girls into Austria. Girls were hidden inside the minibuses, in specially built places and they stated that their intention was to go to work in Italy, but they did not have Schengen visas. 11 additional persons in the minibus possessed forged documents. According to the driver’s statements, they often transport people and goods to Italy and Austria in the above-mentioned way. This modus operandi is well known in Ukraine, and many minibuses are modified with special places for hidden persons and goods. Drivers were sentenced to a imprisonment penalty of 1 year and 10 months, but the penalty was suspended for 4 years. All of them were expelled to Ukraine and fined 100,000 HUF.
