A coordinated operation uncovered an unprecedented route beneath a closely monitored frontier, revealing a new challenge for Latvian border security.<\/p>\n
An underground tunnel used to smuggle people across the Latvian-Belarusian border has been discovered. Law enforcement officers stopped 15 people nearby who had illegally crossed Latvia\u2019s state border.<\/p>\n
The operation was carried out by officers from the State Border Guard and State Police, with the involvement of a Lithuanian border service dog handler and a rapid response unit. The group was discovered while officers were following up on information they had received.<\/p>\n
Tunnel Found Near Border Fence<\/p>\n
After detaining the group, border guards continued searching the area and investigating the circumstances of the illegal border crossing. In the area overseen by the Silene Border Guard Unit, they found an underground passage about ten meters from the fence.<\/p>\n
Border guards had already received information that a tunnel might be under construction in this area. However, no signs of a border breach had previously been recorded there, nor had anyone who had illegally entered Latvia been detained.<\/p>\n
First Recorded Case in Latvia<\/p>\n
The State Border Guard stressed that this was the first known case of an underground tunnel being used to cross Latvia\u2019s state border illegally.<\/p>\n
All 15 individuals were detained under Section 4 of the State Border Guard Law. After the necessary procedures were completed, they were returned to the country from which they had arrived.<\/p>\n
The underground passage represents a new method of illegally crossing the Latvian-Belarusian border, one that had not previously been recorded in this area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A coordinated operation uncovered an unprecedented route beneath a closely monitored frontier, revealing a new challenge for Latvian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[252,1600,2059,1815,2060,95,2061],"class_list":["post-5032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-border-guards","tag-illegal-border-crossings","tag-latvia-belarus-border-underground-border-tunnel-illegal-border-crossings-latvian-border-security-border-guards","tag-latvia-belarus-border","tag-latvian-border-security","tag-news","tag-underground-border-tunnel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}