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Latvian criminals are deported from Lincolnshire
31 January 2012
The UK Border Agency have deported 2 foreign nationals, wanted for serious crimes in their home country.
On 26 January Ivo Liparts, a 38-year-old Latvian national, was taken from Lincoln Prison where he was serving a sentence and deported.
Liparts lived in Boston, where he committed a string of criminal offences, including damage to property and cars.
In July 2010, the courts imposed a restraining order after he engaged in threatening behaviour towards a female. Within days he had breached the order and received a 16-week prison sentence, but a further breach in March 2011 saw him sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment.
In April 2011 the UK Border Agency was notified, via Interpol, that Liparts was wanted in Latvia for other offences. At the same time, Lincolnshire Police were concerned about the possible risk he would pose to the public on his release from prison, so asked the UK Border Agency if he could be deported.
A specialist immigration crime team, made up of immigration and police officers seconded to the UK Border Agency from Lincolnshire Police, obtained a deportation order on public safety grounds - that it would not be conducive to the public good for Liparts to remain in the UK .
Liparts is now banned from returning to the UK for a minimum of 10 years.
Another Latvian criminal, living in Lincolnshire, was deported on 5 January.
Romans Jekabsons, aged 40, was arrested on 4 December 2011 by officers from the UK Border Agency's immigration crime team after a European Arrest Warrant was served. He was wanted by the Latvian authorities for raping a 15-year-old female at gunpoint in his home country in May 2005.
Jekabsons fled Latvia before he could be sentenced, and came to the UK before the arrest warrant was issued. The Latvian authorities sentenced him in his absence to 10 years' imprisonment.
While in the UK, he lived at Waterworks Street, Gainsborough and did not commit any offences.
After his arrest, he was remanded into custody until being extradited to Latvia.
Since April 2009, the UK Border Agency's immigration crime team in Lincolnshire has located, arrested and extradited 79 EU nationals wanted for serious offences in their home countries. Offences committed by these foreign nationals have included murder, sexual assault and running prostitution rings. None of these individuals committed any serious crimes while living in Lincolnshire.
Andy Wells from the UK Border Agency's Lincolnshire immigration crime team said:
'We are determined to ensure, as these cases show, that serious foreign criminals cannot escape justice in their home countries by hiding in Lincolnshire.
'We will not tolerate immigration abuse and are cracking down on foreign criminals, fraudsters and sham marriages all over the county.
Intelligence is the key to our success and we would urge anyone with information about suspected immigration abuse to contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.'
UK Border Agency officers check people when they arrive at the UK border against police, security and immigration watch lists for the purposes of national security and the detection and prevention of crime. The responsibility for passing international information on to UK enforcement agencies rests with the authorities in each country concerned.