The chief of the Border Guard service said the greatest challenge is patrolling the “green border”, or wilderness zones between official border crossings where it has become increasingly popular for smugglers and illegal migrants to try to enter the EU.
“The problem is that we’re still enforcing the border with the same resources we’ve had, basically the points where we’ve set up stationary detection equipment. Of course our canine units help us regardless whether it’s the erected borderline or just a wildlife path through the woods. And the professionalism of our officers, too," the commander of the Border Guard explained.
The problem is that the intensity of the organization of illegal border crossings has grown, he said.
This year altogether 107 persons have been detained compared with only 49 during the entire previous year. Last week border guards discovered another group of Vietnamese – fourteen persons this time, attempting to come into Latvia from Russia.
Also on the rise is the number of asylum-seekers in Latvia, which has already doubled to 392 persons over last year’s total of 180.
While contraband smugglers, mainly in the illegal cigarette trade, are encountered less frequently, they have designed new ways of sneaking large numbers of excise goods into the country, such as floating them on rafts where the border crosses a body of water.
Garbars called for additional resources for the Border Guard service, not least of which is the need for more personnel, including 230 border guard officers. Despite the lack of budget resources for a swift development of the service, gradual upgrades of staff and equipment will begin next year, Garbars said.
