The Finnish Border Guard Agency (RAJA) has arrested 11 Iranian nationals for illegally crossing the southeastern border.
As revealed by RAJA, all those arrested crossed the land border and applied for asylum after their arrest, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
On January 11, 2024, border guards in south-eastern Finland arrested 11 people on suspicion of interstate crimes in Lappeenranta, in the area between Nuijamaa and Jotseno.
According to RAJA, the arrested Iranian nationals are suspected of involvement in cross-border crimes.
Authorities say the group received help from Russian authorities to reach Finnish territory, suggesting Russia continues to use migrants to destabilize Finland.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the group facilitated unauthorized border crossings on the Russian side.
The Finnish-Russian border is currently closed and there have been no regular border crossings so far this year.
Regarding the past 12 months, RAJA revealed that approximately 1,231,000 border crossings were registered at border crossings in south-eastern Finland in 2023.
In 2023, the Valimaa border crossing recorded the highest number of border crossings with 804,000 crossings among all border crossings in south-eastern Finland.
Valimaa border crossing is followed by Njiamar with 307,000 border crossings and Imatra with 119,000 border crossings.
Furthermore, in 2023, Finnish border guards stopped a total of 1,769 people from crossing the southeastern border. The majority of people refused entry to Finland last year were Russian nationals, and travel restrictions were in place.
Last year, border guards in south-eastern Finland also detected a large number of fake documents: 68 fake travel documents, 28 fake vehicle documents and 17 other fake documents.
The country started this year with strict rules and controls. Due to concerns about instrumentalized migration, Finland has decided to close its entire land border with Russia until February 11th.
People cannot cross the border between Finland and Russia while it is closed. Furthermore, as long as the measures are in place, no international protection applications will be accepted at the Finnish-Russian border.
Instead, those who wish to apply for international protection must submit their application at one of the open border crossings.
Finland said it would regularly evaluate its border measures and decide whether to maintain or abolish them depending on the situation, with the aim of avoiding any threats.