Latvian Prosecutor’s Office: Migrants Forced to Damage Border Infrastructure

Reform.news Editorial Team · 26 October 2026, 09:19

https://reform.news/en/latvian-prosecutor-s-office-migrants-forced-to-damage-border-infrastructure/

Migrants seeking to enter the EU from Belarus through the Latvian border are being forced to damage infrastructure if they have not paid to cross the border.  Andris Aleksejevs, a prosecutor in the Department for the Protection of State Security at the Prosecutor General’s Office, told Latvian television’s LTV programme De facto, LSM reports: LSM.

“In this criminal case, there are reasonable grounds to suspect that Belarusian border guard officials are involved in organizing illegal migration and are also damaging our infrastructure to facilitate the commission of a crime,” he said.

According to the Latvian Border Guard, more than 60 cases of damage to border infrastructure have been recorded so far this year. The incidents involve distribution cabinets, video cameras and other equipment. There were 23 such cases last year.

According to Aleksejevs, migrants must pay around $5,000 for “services” to cross the border. Payments are generally made in cryptocurrency. The route runs through Russia into Belarus, and then to camps near the border, where migrants wait for a signal to cross. They may spend several days in these camps, and in some cases, months.

“Uniformed officials visit them regularly, line people up and check photographs to determine whether they have paid for the illegal border crossing.

If someone has not paid, they have a choice: either they are sent to damage our infrastructure, or they are physically assaulted or tortured in some other way until they agree to go and damage infrastructure in the Republic of Latvia,” Aleksejevs said.

Since July this year, Latvia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has been investigating the creation of a criminal organization for the purpose of committing particularly serious crimes against the Latvian state. Evidence collected during the investigation indicates that migrants know exactly where and what they need to damage, and that the acts take place in a matter of seconds. They carry tools, including hacksaws for cutting metal. After damaging the infrastructure, they return to Belarusian territory.

Ivars Ruskulis, deputy head of the State Border Guard, believes that migrants would not have been able to plan such actions on their own.

“All the acts of obstruction, destructive and sabotage activities, as well as actions that threaten our officers, are mainly linked to the failure to get migrants across the border. This brings the business of the criminal networks involved in this cooperation to a halt. Our operational officers and investigators are working on this, and they are actively cooperating with Europol. The investigation is being conducted at the international level,” he said.

The report also notes that after the number of Latvian officers directly at the border increased, migrants began to be picked up 20–30 kilometres away from it. The routes are also changing. They are now more often transported towards Estonia, Finland and Sweden rather than Germany.

“It is important to understand that this is not some minor national case! I see a large number of international criminal groups coming to us, and they may not even know that they are cooperating with Belarusian officials,” Aleksejevs added.