Prometheus Project partnered with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to organize a workshop on July 6 and 7, 2021 on the fight against immigration networks, for the benefit of the Criminal Police and the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia.
Two experienced police investigators, a French officer from OCRIEST (Central Office for the Repression of Irregular Immigration and Employment of Untitled Foreigners) and a Spanish officer from UCRIF (Central Unit for Illegal Immigration Networks and False Documents - the Spanish counterpart of OCRIEST) came to Tbilisi. They shared their experience and expertise in judicial investigations in the fight against the criminal networks behind the facilitation of the illegal stay of third-country nationals in European Union Member States. Several investigations carried out by the French and Spanish services were presented. Twenty Georgian prosecutors and officers from the Criminal Police participated in this workshop.
Experts underlined the crucial importance of international cooperation, especially with regard to the operational information sharing and the gathering of evidences, in order to effectively combat these transnational organized networks.
The Georgian side presented several investigations carried out over the past two years on the basis of Article 344-2 of the Georgian Criminal Code. This article penalizes a person helping a Georgian citizen to enter, stay illegally and seek unfounded asylum in foreign countries.
