The total of 29 experts from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain are deployed at 8 European airports in an operation tackling illegal migration from South America. The operation Amazon II started on 19 February as a follow up to a similar operation conducted in November 2006.
“As our risk analysis has shown, there is a major migration flow by air from South America in conjunction with the misuse of visas and other travel documents, much of it destined for Spain and Portugal, but also involving airports in other Member States,” FRONTEX Executive Director Laitinen explains.
The airports in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Madrid, Milan, Paris, and Rome are participating in this operation. Beside the twenty-nine border police experts , other seven border police officers from Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Poland are taking part as observers in this multilateral operation. The operation is being coordinated by the FRONTEX Operational Coordination Centre (F.O.C.C.) in Warsaw. The F.O.C.C. includes the agency’s own experts as well as national experts from Germany, Spain, Portugal and the UK.
Beside the focus on detection of cases of illegal migration, the operation also has an important expertise sharing aspect, provided by the experts to colleagues from other Member States using a training tool on false and falsified documents developed under coordination of FRONTEX.