Police Attorney:-naïve to believe there are no human traffickers in Norway

Russian border on Storskog.Photo: Torstein Bøe / NTB scanpix

According to a report from Europol 90 percent of the refugees who came to Europe last year has purchased services from criminal networks. But Norwegian police have little opportunity to stop human traffickers operating in this country.

It would be naive to think that there are no people linked to these networks in Norway. It goes without saying that when 90 percent of  the refugees have purchased services from smuggling networks, and a large proportion of them enter Northern Europe and Scandinavia as their final destination, there will be people related to these networks in Norway as well,  police lawyer Rudolf Christoffersen working for Eurojust in the Netherlands, says to the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.
It would be difficult to investigate human traffickers in Norway because it is the only country in Europe where wiretapping is not an option.
One of the ways that the human traffickers approach migrants is through social media. They then sell the migrants services like false travel and identity documents and contact with people who will provide transportation and money laundering.
– In 2015 human traficking was among the most profitable criminal activities in Europe, says Christoffersen, who has previously worked to investigate trafficking in Hordaland Police.
However, Norway has one of the lowest penalties for organized human trafficking in Europe,  six years in prison,  DN writes.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today