BUCHAREST, November 5, 2014 – The Ceremony to hand over the Certificate of Honor for the joint operation „ADVISER” was held today at the General Inspectorate of Romanian Police Headquarters in Bucharest.
Present to witness the ceremony were the representatives from Romanian Police (Mr. Virgil Spiridon, Deputy General Inspector, and Mr. Constantin Bolbosanu, Deputy Director of Directorate for Countering Organized Criminality) as well as from SELEC (Mr. Cristian Duţă, Director for Operations).
On 8th of October 2014, SELEC granted awards to those cases which proved to be successful in fighting trans-border organized crime, for the first semester of 2014.
The awards are granted twice per year and represent recognition of outstanding law enforcement activities carried out by Police and Customs Authorities of SELEC Member States in fighting trans-border organized crime. The goal of the awards is to provide not only a material prize, but also to motivate the law enforcement authorities to use cooperation avenues available through SELEC for fighting trans-border organized crime in Southeast Europe.
On this occasion, the Bureau for Countering Illegal Migrants’ Trafficking witihn the General Inspectorate of Romanian Police was awarded the third prize for the joint operation „ADVISER”.
Operation “ADVISER” was a case in the field of migrants smuggling developed by the competent law enforcement authorities from Romania and Hungary.
The case started in 2012, as several employment agencies had been reporting the missing of their workers that were legally brought to Romania from Philippine and Nepal.
It has been established the existence in Romania of an organized crime group made up of Indian citizens, who were involved in trafficking with migrants of Filipino and Nepali origin to Schengen member states, such as France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain or United Kingdom.
A joint investigation team together with the law enforcement authorities from Hungary was set up at the beginning of 2013. In January 2014, the case entered into its operational phase.
Due to this extremely professional approach and having the valuable support of SELEC, the operation had the following results: arrest of 7 persons, seizure of 200 fake passports, stamps, employment forms, dismantling counterfeiting lab in Romania, seizure of 18,000 EUR in cash and 83,432 EUR to be recovered from one of the perpetrators.
Handing over the award, Mr. Cristian Duţă declared: “Trafficking in persons is a global phenomenon that is growing at alarming rates throughout the world and bears on a range of major national security, human rights, criminal justice, social, economic, migration, gender, public health, and labor issues. SELEC will continue to upgrade its operational capabilities in order to support the Member States in successfully conducting joint investigations and to provide strategic analysis covering the phenomenon of trafficking in persons, which represents a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights.”
