29 Vietnamese immigrants held for illegally entering Latvia

A trafficker and 29 Vietnamese migrants were detained for illegally entering Latvia on Monday, a representative of the Latvian border guard service informed.

The first group of 17 Vietnamese citizens and their trafficker, a resident of Estonia, were detained during a major overnight operation in the easternmost Latvian municipality of Cibla. Around noon on Monday, another 12 illegal immigrants from Vietnam were detained in the municipality of Zilupe, also near Latvia's eastern border with Russia.

Handlers with sniffer dogs and a helicopter were involved in the operation in which border guards managed to detain the first group of Vietnamese migrants and their 34-year-old trafficker from Estonia who had led them into a bog in Latvian territory. The second group of immigrants was held at noon near a lake.

Latvian law enforcement authorities have launched a criminal investigation for illegal trafficking of persons over the state border.

Of the 110 people who have been detained in Latvia this year for trespassing the state border, 102 are citizens of Vietnam, and seven citizens of Russia, nine Latvians, three Poles, one Kyrgyz, one Tajik and one Estonian have been held for helping the migrants to cross into Latvia. Endit