19/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - Eurojust, the judicial cooperation agency, announced on Friday 16 April that 17 people had been arrested in Southern Romania on child trafficking and money laundering charges. These arrests were part of a large-scale operation to dismantle a network trafficking children from Romania into the United Kingdom. The victims, from poor Roma communities, were forced to beg and to steal in the UK. Some 168 victims, aged between 7 and 15, have so far been identified. The operation, which involved 300 Romanian police officers, 26 officers from the Metropolitan Police in London and two Europol experts, also brought the discovery of a number of firearms, jewellery, large sums of money and also papers. The operation, code-named “Europa”, comes after a cooperation agreement was concluded between the two countries in 2008 setting up a joint team to investigate this kind of trafficking. (B.C./transl.rt)