Blog #10: Thai, Australia police bust human trafficking ring

On Tuesday, six people were arrested by the police in Thailand and Australia as part of a yearlong, multination operation against human trafficking networks.  An Iraq man and a Thai woman, located in Bangkok, were arrested as well as four men in Sydney and Melbourne.  The arrests were part of “Operation Arapaima,” a yearlong effort to crackdown on human trafficking networks.  These networks are located in Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and Thailand.  Australian police say operations are still continuing while no arrests were made in Malaysia or Indonesia.  Asylum seekers have been attracted to Australia for many years.  They seek a new life by coming to Australia.  Most war-ravaged nations, such as Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq, are the prime providers of the incomers to Australia.  They use Indonesia or Malaysia as start points as they journey to Australia by sea.

            Arrests because of passport forgery haves also been made.  A police raid revealed 16 fake passports for United Arab Emirates and the equipment to make them.  These passports run for $400 each.  Because the UAE is seen as peaceful with higher standards of living, they were less likely to be suspected of passport forgery or having fake passports.  Suspected and arrested people could serve up to 20 years, and all the efforts made to smuggle people were said to take advantage of vulnerable people and put their lives at risk. 

            With this situation, this directly links to the 1% discrepancies.  In many case, a very small, power heavy group of people value money over the people.  They create situations to keep themselves above all and pray off those below them.  This promotes human equality and that can branch off into many different sectors.  Human equality in this form can promote gender equality, forgery (both mentioned in this article), as well as indirect attacks of different regions because of who is more vulnerable and easy to take over, at least viewed that way by others.  These actions of traffickers and ringleaders also set an economic issue for society.  These efforts bring in much money as they sell people and fake passports all while taking money from those who were already struggling financially. 

           

http://articles.boston.com/2012-03-27/news/31245702_1_fake-passports-thai-police-human-trafficking