Law enforcement officers have broken up a “criminal group” specialising in human trafficking, which allegedly “exploited through forced labour” several people

The activity of a “criminal group” specializing in human trafficking and organizing illegal migration for profit has been broken up by the officers of the Investigation Directorate “Centre”, together with prosecutors from the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) and in cooperation with employees of the Centre for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, law enforcement officials announced in a statement on Monday, March 20.

According to the authorities, five suspects, aged between 45 and 60, citizens of the R. Moldova, Romania and Austria, during 2021, under the pretext of employment in an official and well-paid service in European Union countries, recruited and transported several Moldovans.

“They perfected for them false Romanian identity documents and individual employment contracts on the basis of these false identity documents, for which they subsequently submitted them debts and imposed them to work in various types of construction. The people were not provided with the promised conditions from the outset and the agreed wages, thus exploiting them through forced labour.”

Police action established that the suspects had well-defined roles as transporters and organisers. One of the suspects is in Austria. He is responsible for making fake Romanian identity cards for the victims.

The police established that over the course of a year, the suspects would have transported more than 10 people, collecting between 10,000 and 20,000 lei from the victims for transport, the preparation of false Romanian identity documents, accommodation and food.

“On 16 March, law enforcement officers searched the home of an accomplice from R. Moldova and in his cars, from where they collected packages of drugs, namely shredded hemp ready for consumption, draft entries with the calculation of the working hours of the injured parties, copies of false Romanian identity documents with the picture of the injured parties that were used for employment and used for free movement within the EU, mobile phones and various documents with false identity data of the injured parties used in Austria,” the press release said.

The 60-year-old suspect was previously sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. He is being investigated at large.

Under criminal law, a person guilty of such an offence faces a prison sentence of 7 to 15 years.

Investigations are continuing with a view to identifying and bringing to justice other persons involved in the commission of the crime, the authorities say.