Human smuggling gang blocked in Finland: border guard

The Finnish Border Guard prevented an international criminal organization from further using Finland as a springboard to smuggle people from Asia to Europe, local media reported on Wednesday.

Thirteen suspects remain in detention on charges of helping to bring at least 45 people of mainly Indian background to Finland. The arrivals first applied for asylum in Finland, but the organization helped them to travel onward to other countries.

Inspector Teemu Mantyniemi from the Border Guard told Finnish broadcaster Yle that while the same organization seemed to continue smuggling people via other entry points, the route via Finland was blocked.

An international investigation is ongoing.

Mantyniemi said the suspects had been hired by the organization to move people from Finland onto other European countries. The suspects were Indian, Pakistani, Dutch and Swedish citizens, two of them residing in Finland.

The investigation started when one of the suspects was caught at the Helsinki International Airport in January.

The smugglers' customers were people living in poor conditions in India. They had been promised both asylum status and work, for which they paid 15,000 euros (17,249 U.S. dollars) per person. They were transported first to Russia and then to Finland via the northern land border.

Finland and Russia agreed recently that the two northernmost border crossings be restricted to Finnish, Russian and Belorussian passport holders only. Endit