A criminal case has been referred to court in Lithuania in which an Eritrean national is accused of organising the smuggling of two Ethiopian citizens across the border, while the Ethiopians are charged with using stolen identity documents.
The 26-year-old Eritrean citizen, identified as J. M. A., is charged with organising the illegal smuggling of persons across the state border and the unlawful use of personal documents.
Two 26-year-old Ethiopian women are also charged with the illegal use of identity documents, the Prosecutor General’s Office said on Wednesday.
The criminal case has been transferred to the Panevėžys Regional Court for trial.
In January this year, border guards inspecting a bus travelling from Riga to Warsaw noticed two young women who presented Greek residence permits and refugee travel documents issued to Eritrean citizens. It was later established that they were Ethiopian nationals, and the documents did not belong to them.
Both women had previously entered Latvia irregularly from Belarus and were residing in a refugee centre.
The Eritrean national, J. M. A., who holds a UK residence permit, was travelling on the same bus. Although the women claimed not to know him, border guards found evidence of a bank transfer on one of their phones – a payment of 550 British pounds to the man.
The pre-trial investigation found that one of the women had been in contact with J. M. A. via social media for a long period, during which he coordinated movement from Belarus through Latvia to Western Europe.
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