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Border guards on Sunday captured some Vietnamese who were trying to illegally cross the border from Russia to Estonia and a man with Russian citizenship who was trying to smuggle them in near Varska in southeastern Estonia.
Border guards capture human smuggler, illegals in southern Estonia
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At around 7 a.m. on June 23 surveillance equipment at Saatse alerted border guards to an illegal crossing of the border by six individuals, a spokesperson for the South prefecture of the Police and Border Guard Board told BNS. Border guards managed to stop two men on the spot, but two men ran towards Estonian inland and two men towards Russia when they spotted the officers.
At 8.30 a.m. the border guards captured a Russian citizen born in 1982 who was suspected of involvement in smuggling the illegals across the border. The man was waiting for the Vietnamese in Ulitina village in an Audi with Latvian license plates to take the six men inland.
The two men who ran towards the Estonian inland were caught two kilometers from the border. At 11 a.m. a helicopter was brought in to search for the other two men but three hours later Russian border guards announced they had found two men that fit the description.
The Vietnamese illegals were sent back to Russia on June 24, the spokesperson said.
The Russian national was on June 25 found guilty of attempting to smuggle foreigners across the border. In a plea bargain deal, the man received a conditional sentence with a three-year probation.