In 2023, 35 human trafficking networks were broken up

The Romanian Police announces that, last year, they carried out 187 operational actions, following which 35 criminal groups of  trafficking in human beings and 465 people were prosecuted, 83% of whom were accused of sexually exploiting victims.Of the 1,336 criminal cases in which the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime conducted investigations during 2023, under delegation, 669 concerned international trafficking in human beings, i.e. 50.07%, and 667 internal trafficking, representing 49.93%. According to the data in the investigations as regards the exploitation of victims at domestic level (49.93% of the total of investigations aimed at exclusively domestic traffic) there is a preference for under age victims as they are easy to recruit and exploit, especially by making them practise prostitution and not necessarily external travel/border crossing.Similarly,  there is observed the classic modus operandi, namely sexual exploitation (out of the total of 1,336 files, 1,118 aiming at sexual exploitation – 83,7%), pimping by an organised group – 4%, work exploitation – 142 files (10.63%), coercion to commit petty crimes and forcing to beg – 81 cases (6%), slavery – 7 cases (0.52%).According to the Romanian police, there have been no changes in the process of recruiting victims and the means of coercion, maintaining false promises of obtaining well-paid jobs, gaining the trust of victims through enslavement and emotional dependence (loverboy method), gain-sharing - emotional coercion, abuse and blackmail, seizure and withholding of documents, inducing fear of reprisals against them or their family members if they seek police assistance, and various forms of violence, especially in the exploitation phase. "The loverboy method has in recent years become more than a preferred method of recruitment and exploitation in most cases of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, with traffickers not hesitating to marry the victims and even have children with them, thus gaining control and a position of manipulation over the victims, as well as a guarantee that they will not seek the support of the authorities, thus creating total emotional and psychosocial dependence of the victim on the trafficker," the police say. In 2023, the profile of traffickers has not changed compared to previous years, so that they are Romanian citizens of both sexes, of various ages, some known with a criminal record for human trafficking or other criminal offences. ‘The tendency of traffickers is to act individually or in small groups, under the format of association on family criteria mainly, kinship or common interests, so that every stage of the traffic may be managed by any of the group, and the profits obtained as a result of the criminal activities stay concentrated in the possession of a restrained group of people/families/relatives’ is another conclusion of the police.There is a tendency to move away from the establishment of an organised criminal group, i.e. a structured group with a leader coordinating the activities of a number of perpetrators on a well-defined hierarchical scale, but rather to associate traffickers in groups without a determined structure and to approach the criminal aspects from the perspective of a "business" in which they share the proceeds equally.   Changes in the modus operandi, i.e. in the way victims are exploited, have been observed, in the sense of adapting the traffickers' behaviour, avoiding violence, and from a judicial point of view, the offences have increasingly taken on the constituent elements of the crime of pimping instead of trafficking in persons/minors.   As the statistics show, newly registered criminal cases are on a downward trend every year, which shows that the anti-trafficking efforts are constant and consistent, police say.