Collaboration and Technology – These are the key words to explain last year’s performance in protecting and strengthening the state border. Partners of the Latvia-Lithuania programme project “SYNERGY FOR SECURITY” may be pleased that most of the intentions have been successfully implemented, large-scale purchases of modern technologies have been made. Great attention has been paid to the construction of the border infrastructure, as well as to the development of technical tools.  As a result, the number of violations detected on the “green” border has doubled. If 104 third-country nationals were detained for illegal crossing of the “green” border in 2017, then in 2018, 199 third-country nationals were caught in this illegal activity, in close cooperation with their counterparts from neighboring countries. Vietnamese nationals still dominate among illegal border offenders. In 2018, several cases of illicit movement of tobacco products have also been detected in Latvia, namely 17 persons were detained illegally on the green border last year and almost a million smuggled cigarettes were removed.

In 2018, the Lithuanian State Border Guard detected 67 border violations at the border with Belarus and detained 121 border offenders. In the said border section, 184 cases of smuggling to Lithuania were blocked last year. The high number of detained immigrants is due to the effectiveness of the border guard.

An invaluable support for border guarding is the construction of infrastructure along Latvia’s external border and also special technical tools such as video surveillance or presence detection systems. Presence detection systems allow you to see not only illegally border crossers or smugglers, but also often “four-legged” offenders.

 

This publication has been prepared with financial support from the European Union. The content of the publication is entirely the responsibility of the State Police of the Republic of Latvia, and   does not constitute an official position of the European Union.

 

INTERREG V-A Latvia-Lithuania Programme project LLI-082 „SYNERGY FOR SECURITY”

Budget: 580 236,21 EUR – 85% ERDF funding, 15% national co-financing (incl. state co-financing – 5% in LV, 7,5% in LT)

Duration: 24 MONTHS (May 17, 2017-November 16, 2019) The project is co-financed by the Latvia-Lithuania programme. Project Lead partner is latvian State police.

Website of the 2014.-2020 INTERREG V-A Latvia-Lithuania Programme: www.latlit.eu/

Official website of the European Union: www.europa.eu