Russian and Indian citizens deprived of liberty for attempting to organize an illegal migration channel through Belarus

May 10, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. A Russian citizen and an Indian citizen, detained in the Vitebsk region while attempting to organize an illegal migration channel, have been sentenced to three years in prison with confiscation of property, Aleksey Ratskun, press secretary of the KGB department for the Vitebsk region, told a BELTA correspondent. The court found the citizen of the Russian Federation and the citizen of India, who permanently resides in the Russian Federation, guilty of organizing illegal migration and attempted bribery. As previously reported, employees of the KGB department of the Republic of Belarus for the Vitebsk region, together with servicemen of the Polotsk border guard detachment, detained a criminal group on the border of the Verkhnedvinsk district. The Russian citizen and the Indian citizen were trying to establish a channel for smuggling foreigners from Asian countries through Belarus to the territory of Latvia, and then to Germany and other EU countries. According to Aleksey Ratskun, currently, there is an intensification of activities of organizers of illegal migration channels from countries with terrorist activity to European states on the territory of Belarus. Among the objective reasons for the increase in the flow of illegal migration to EU countries, he cited the continued instability in the countries of Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, the intensification of illegal migration flows from the Caucasus region, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Vietnam, whose routes geographically pass through the territory of Belarus. -0-