2.lapa
Economic migrants from third countries continue to abuse Latvia's hospitality to enter the European Union. This would not be possible without the involvement of local fraudsters and also education salesmen.
In the first half of March, the State Border Guard, in cooperation with the Kurzeme Regional Police, detained the head of a travel agency. Under the guise of the tourism business, he offered his clients a fictitious visa processing service. By submitting false information to the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA), the citizens of the Republic of Uzbekistan were provided with the opportunity to seemingly legally reside in Latvia and other European Union member states, European Economic Area countries and Switzerland.
In the eyes of migrants, Latvian visas and temporary residence permits are golden, as these documents open the door to the land of happiness. You can stay in Latvia and work as a food courier or illegally in construction. But you can go further in Europe to even richer pastures than Latvia. This is exactly what the clients of the particular tour company have done - they were all Uzbeks. Illegal services have been performed by the company since 2017. The Border Guard reports that fictitious invitations were issued to at least 1,375 Uzbek citizens. No less than 1,055 Uzbeks received Latvian visas on the basis of this invitation. And at least 301 Uzbek citizens entered Sweden on the basis of these visas, where they applied for asylum. During the pre-trial investigation, searches took place in both Riga and Liepāja; computers, documents and large amounts of cash were seized. Obviously, illegal visas and temporary residence permits are an expensive service. However, there are other, less risky ways to enter the European Union. These are Latvian higher education institutions that are able to provide documents and entry to a much larger number of third-country nationals. You can read the whole article here
