Authorities at Václav Havel Airport in Prague detained five foreign nationals in early January after they allegedly attempted to travel through the Schengen Area using counterfeit identification. The arrests, made over a 48-hour period, highlight an ongoing trend of irregular migration originating from Greece, according to a report by Captain Josef Urban of the Foreign Police Service.
The surge in detections began during a residency check on a flight arriving from Athens. Police intercepted two individuals from Asia who reportedly presented forged Czech and Estonian passports. Investigators say the pair intended to continue their journey toward Germany and Switzerland.
In a separate incident on the same route, officers identified two more passengers allegedly carrying high-quality forgeries of Austrian and French passports. While their travel documents were deemed fraudulent, subsequent checks revealed that both individuals held valid asylum seeker cards issued in Greece. Their stated destinations were Switzerland and France.
A fifth traveler was later detained on a subsequent flight from Athens after allegedly presenting another forged Czech passport with the intent of reaching Germany.
“Targeted residency checks are a fundamental and effective tool in our effort to combat illegal transit migration,” Captain Urban stated. He noted that while the use of intra-Schengen flights by migrants using irregular documents is a long-standing trend, the statistical probability of detecting a fraudulent document remains relatively low, occurring approximately once for every 30,000 processed passengers.
All five individuals are currently being held as authorities initiate proceedings under Section 348 of the Criminal Code, which covers the forgery and alteration of public documents. The Foreign Police Service confirmed that monitoring flights from Greece remains a priority due to the persistence of this specific transit route.
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