The global financial and economic crisis will increase the likelihood of trafficking in human beings,

narcotics and goods, as well as money laundering, US Deputy Chief of Mission in Sofia Alexander Karagiannis said at the opening of a conference on human trafficking and money laundering at the National Investigation Service on Tuesday.

As Karagiannis put it, traffickers use the same routes, means and techniques, which is why resolute action and measures must be taken to end these activities. According to US data, some 800,000 people, of whom 80 per cent are women, become victims of trafficking worldwide annually.

Sending traffickers to prison is not enough, whereas depriving them of financial resources puts them out of business, the US diplomat said. He added that Bulgaria has made certain progress in respect of money laundering but described it as insufficient.

Bulgaria has not succeeded in achieving the number of rules, procedures and laws required to meet the most rigorous international standards, Karagiannis said, noting that the US is ready to help Bulgaria combat human trafficking and money laundering.

Linking human trafficking with the laundering of the proceeds from it is an important step, National Investigation Service Director Boiko Naidenov said. The servcies have managed to find instruments to counter the laundering of money from human trafficking.

Deputy Interior Minister Roumen Andreev noted that a connection between human trafficking and money laundering is made in this country for the first time, which is important because the two activities cannot do without one another.

"Agriculture is an economic sector which traffickers use ever more frequently to launder money from human trafficking," said Georgi Petrounov of the Risk Monitor Foundation. "Agriculture is used by traffickers because cash flows there are more difficult to control," Petrounov explained. "Traffickers lease or purchase large agricultural properties at prices higher than the market ones," he specified.

"Traffickers launder money by investing in mass catering establishments, hotels, shops, and import of goods, and in this case declare turnovers far higher than the actual ones," Petrounov said. According to Risk Monitor estimates, between 50 and 80 per cent of the proceeds from human trafficking come back to Bulgaria.

"Ever younger persons tend to be trafficked," said Svetoslav Tanev of the Interior Ministry's Chief Directorate Border Police. For 2008 alone, the Border Police has detected 197 cases of trafficking, of which 167 of adults and 22 of underage persons, Tanev said. The destinations are most often France, Greece, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland.

Of the 107 traffickers detected, 104 are Bulgarians, two are French, and one is Greek. Thirty-four persons have been charged, and 20 have been sentenced by the first-instance courts, Tanev said.

According to the Migration Directorate at the State Agency for National Security, more than 500 cases with over 800 victims of trafficking were recorded in Germany in 2008. Bulgarians are the second most numerous traffickers after Germans.

Dobromir Dochev of the Interior Ministry's Suppression of Organized and Serious Crime Directorate said that Bulgaria ranks third in Europe in the number of persons trafficked for sexual exploitation to other EU Member States.

"Trafficking in babies is a phenomenon unique to Bulgaria," said Antoaneta Vassileva, Chief Secretary of the Bulgarian National Anti-Trafficking Commission with the Council of Ministers. In this form of trafficking, expecting mothers go to another country to give birth and sell the child there.

The problem became a fact in 2006, when most of the babies sold were from the regions of Bourgas and Sliven. The tendency has persisted over the last two years, but pregnant women are now recruited from Pleven and Lovech, Vassileva added.

The prosecuting magistracy has data on seven recorded cases of trafficking in babies in 2008. The commonest destination is Greece, where a boy fetches 18,000 euro and a girl 13,000-14,000 euro. Of this money, the mother gets not more than 2,000-3,000 euro, Vassileva said. She noted that the very weak cooperation with the prime destination country as an obstacle to combating this crime.

Since 2006, the Criminal Assets Identification Commission has approached the court with ten motions for confiscation of proceeds from human trafficking in the form of corporeal immovables worth 3.7 million leva, said Georgi Iliev of the Commission. One judgment granting such a motion, for 67,000 euro, has so far taken final effect, and two other judgments, for 741,000 leva, are before the first- and second-instance courts, Iliev specified.

Source: BTA