Switzerland has participated in a big operation by European police against human trafficking which resulted in the arrest of 70 people, according to Europol.
“Europol supported a pan-European operation against trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation, forced begging and labour exploitation,” the European Union’s police cooperation body said in a press releaseexternal link on Friday. Overall results included 34 arrests for “trafficking of human beings” and 36 arrests for “other offences such as robbery, dissemination of child sexual exploitation material and facilitation of illegal immigration”.
More than 127,000 individuals, 63,800 vehicles and 1,100 locations were checked between 17 and 23 June 2019 across the participating countries, according to Europol. “Law enforcement authorities searched private properties, commercial establishments, hotels, buses and train stations, ferry ports, airports and border crossings”.
Pan-European collaboration also allowed identification of 206 potential victims, 53 of which were confirmed to be minors. These activities “enabled the initiation of 31 new cases of human trafficking across the different participating countries”, says Europol.
The operation was led by the UK and included 15 EU countries plus Switzerland and Iceland.
Keystone-SDA/jc
SWI swissinfo.ch on Instagram
SWI swissinfo.ch on Instagram
