On January 10, Vitebsk /BelTA correspondent/. Two Russian citizens have been detained in Polotsk district for organising illegal migration, reported the Head of the Information and Public Relations Department of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, Andrey Semenikhin, to BelTA. During operational search activities targeting members of an international criminal group involved in organising illegal migration, law enforcement officers of Vitebsk region detained six citizens of Vietnam, one from Iraq and one from Afghanistan on the evening of January 8 near a cafe located on the Vitebsk-Polotsk-Lithuanian border highway, close to the village of Baranovo, Polotsk district. They were detained without exit visas of the Republic of Belarus and identity documents. During the initial investigative and operational measures, grounds arose to believe that the entry of the illegal migrants into the territory of Belarus was organised by citizens of the Russian Federation born in 1982 and 1976. Currently, the men have been detained. A criminal case has been initiated against them by the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus for Vitebsk region under Article 371-1, Part 2 ("Organisation of illegal migration"), the sanctions for which provide for 3 to 7 years of imprisonment with possible confiscation of property. Active evidence gathering is underway in this criminal case, noted the official representative of the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus for Vitebsk region, Inna Gorbacheva.

BELTA