Prague, June 8 (CTK) – The Czech police Squad for Uncovering of Organised Crime (UOOZ) has accused 14 people of machinations with student visas and of forgery of visas, UOOZ spokesman Pavel Hantak said in a press release yesterday.
In addition, two regional office employees and the principal of a secondary school are also being prosecuted.
The defendants include seven Czechs, five Ukrainians, one Russian and one Chinese, Hantak said.
If convicted, they can receive ten-year prison sentences, Hantak said.
“For the fee of 11,000-20,000 crowns, the Ukrainians and Czechs doing business in the Czech Republic in the sphere of help to foreigners with gaining documents, mediated validation tests for their clients,” Hantak said.
“In conflict with the law on validation tests, they had them registered in other regions than in those in which the foreigners were registered for their stay. This happened with the collaboration of the responsible employees of regional offices,” Hantak said.
They ensured illegal stay in the Czech Republic to hundreds of foreigners by bribing regional office employees and a school principal or his deputy into giving them simplified validation tests, that were agreed on beforehand, Hantak said.
The bribe amounted to 2,000-5,000 crowns per application for validation, he added.
This group of defendants is facing criminal prosecution on suspicion of helping gain illegal stay in the Czech Republic, bribe-giving and bribe-taking and abuse of power, Hantak said.
One of the defendants, a Ukrainian businessman, 34, living in Prague also worked in the second, six-member group that forged Polish visas issued in Ukraine for Asians, Hantak said.
The businessman was gaining the visas from a Ukrainian couple who imported them from Ukraine.
Then he passed them to two Czechs who were selling the documents to a Chinese man also living in Prague.
The Chinese distributed the forged documents to final recipients in the Asian community, Hantak said.
Each of them had the value of at least 1300 euros.
The group was also gaining forged Schengen labels for the Asians valued at 4000-6000 euros from another Ukrainian from Prague.
It was accused of forgery and help to illegal stay.
The UOOZ was tracking down the two groups for 18 months and it made its raid on May 10-11.
After a police action in Prague, Usti nad Labem, north Bohemia, and Olomouc, north Moravia, the police detained 14 people aged 27-69.
The Prague 3 State Attorney’s Office supervises the case.
($1 = 23.815 crowns)
