Two foreign nationals from Georgia and living in Ireland were found guilty of facilitating human trafficking in Dublins Circuit Court.
According to BreakingNews.ie, the court heard that Mr. Vakjtang Jokhadze (48) and Ms Sophia Grdzelishili (46) who are legally divorced but reside together provided Georgian nationals with fake driving licences and identification cards from EU countries.
The couple received orders for false documents which would be passed on to someone who would create them. The accused would then post the false documents to their customers in various European countries.
The court was told that the illegal immigrants were economic migrants and “asylum seeking” into Ireland using the false documentation, reports Breakingnews.ie
Mr Jokhadze and Ms Grdzelishili pleaded guilty to facilitating the trafficking of illegal immigrants within Ireland.
Mr Jokhadze also pleaded guilty to money laundering, making a gain by deception and possession of false instruments at various locations in Dublin.
Ms Gredzelishili also pleaded guilty to possession of false instruments, reports Breakingnews.ie
Judge Martin Nolan said that for the service of facilitating illegal immigration into this country, the accused were paid “considerable” quantities of money.
According to Breakingnews.ie, he said a court must “engage in a balancing” act where there is a dependent child. He said this was not such a serious case that it would require the court to adopt a course of imprisonment if it would “seriously damage” an innocent child by doing so.
Judge Martin Nolan sentenced Mr. Jokhadze to four years imprisonment, which he backdated to when the accused first went into custody in October 2019.
Breakingnews.ie reports that Judge Nolan sentenced Ms. Grdzelishili to three years imprisonment, but suspended the sentence in its entirety with conditions attached. The Judge justified Ms. Grdzelishili’s suspended sentence of Ms. Grdzelishili by stating “if it were not for Grdzelishili having a teenage son, for whom she is the primary carer, she would be going to prison as he thought she deserved a custodial sentence”.
During the trial Det Sgt Collins said that in general, these “customers” were Georgian nationals wishing to travel to Ireland in order to seek asylum, to simply live in the State or to travel to the UK. They were provided with false documents purporting to be from Slovakia, Romania, Latvia or Lithuania, as EU documents received less scrutiny, reports Breakingnews.ie
It is not reported how many Georgian “customers” entered into Ireland on these fake documents, how many fake asylum seekers entered the Direct provision system or how many illegal immigrants left Ireland for the UK. No status on those who entered Ireland illegally was given in court.
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