In the second quarter of 2016, 874 cases of illegal border-crossing between border crossing-points were reported by the Eastern Partnership Risk Analysis Network member countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). More than half of these cases involved nationals of Eastern Partnership and Community of Independent States countries, mostly Ukrainians, Russians and Moldovans. Among these, more than four in five cases were linked to suspected smuggling of illicit goods or other forms of crime not related to migration.
As regards detections related to irregular migration, the majority of cases involved nationals of Afghanistan and Vietnam. The number of people smugglers arrested in the second quarter dropped by nearly 80% from the previous three months to 45, mainly due to the sharp decrease in migrants crossing the border from the Russian Federation to Finland.