Polish law enforcement agencies, together with partners from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, have detained four Ukrainian citizens suspected of kidnapping illegal migrants for ransom, Polish publication RMF24 reports.
Investigators have established that the criminal group operated in Poland and Latvia. The detainees are aged between 20 and 40. All of them were in Poland legally. Among the suspects is a woman. They are charged with kidnapping and illegal border crossing.
According to preliminary data, the Ukrainians were part of a network that was engaged in the illegal smuggling of migrants to the European Union through Belarus. But instead of the promised transportation to the EU, the perpetrators kidnapped the migrants, took their money and phones, and then demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency. The victims' relatives were sent videos with threats and even torture. In one case, the perpetrators threatened to kill and sell their organs.
One of the episodes occurred in Lublin, where the detainees held the kidnapped men in the trunk of a car and then demanded a ransom from their families. The victims managed to escape and were found in the street in a state of shock by eyewitnesses. The men were naked and frightened.
The group then fled to Latvia, where they carried out another kidnapping of three men from Mali. One of them was tied to a tree and brutally beaten with a wooden stick. The torture video was again sent to the family with a ransom demand.
Polish law enforcement officers, together with their Latvian colleagues, have established the whereabouts of the suspects. Three of them are currently in custody. The investigation is ongoing, and new episodes of criminal activity are likely to be identified.
