Operation GLOBAL CHAIN against human trafficking: Focus on Romania yields results
In 2025, Switzerland once again took part in Europol’s Joint Action Days, an international initiative aimed at combating human trafficking. For the first time, fedpol focused its efforts primarily on victims and perpetrators from Romania.
Romania stays one of the hotspots of human trafficking in Europe – the majority of both victims and perpetrators come from the Eastern European country. This was one of the reasons why fedpol deployed a police attaché to Romania in summer 2025. The attaché ensures that information is shared between law enforcement agencies in Switzerland and Romania, reflecting the country’s growing importance in the fight against crime. “It seemed natural to focus on Romania for Operation GLOBAL CHAIN 2025,” explains Kuno, deputy head of his fedpol division. And fedpol went a step further: it asked Europol for two police officers from Romania to support the Swiss investigative authorities in their operation for two days. On 3 and 4 June, two Romanian officers joined officers from fedpol and local police forces on patrol around red-light districts in four cantons: Bern, Basel-Landschaft, Basel-Stadt and Ticino.
Building trust through a compatriot
Kuno went to Bern and Ticino as part of the patrol, which inspected several establishments and specifically approached Romanian sex workers. The women were interviewed individually and quickly came to trust the officers, as Kuno explains: “Thanks to our Romanian colleague, who could communicate with the women in their own language, we managed to break the ice quickly and have some very open conversations.” They even exchanged contact details. The police officer from Romania encouraged her compatriots to get in touch with her if they feared repercussions in their home country, where sex work is illegal. She was struck by how openly the subject is approached in Switzerland. “In many other countries, sex work is hidden away in the backstreets,” says Kuno. The Romanian investigator was also impressed by the security measures: rooms are fitted with steel doors that cannot easily be forced open from the outside, and security staff are on hand to protect the women.
Even so, sex work can be dangerous in Switzerland. During the two-day operation, fedpol and its partners identified 130 potential victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation. These cases have now been handed over to the cantons for further investigation.
Kuno describes the Operation GLOBAL CHAIN 2025 Joint Action Days as a win-win situation: the sex workers were able to speak openly about their situation, without language and cultural barriers, and the police gained a great deal of valuable insight as a result. Cooperation with Romania in the fight against human trafficking has since been stepped up.
Operation GLOBAL CHAIN 2025 Joint Action Days – results in Switzerland
| Number of participants in the inspections | 255 |
| Premises inspected | 148 |
| Individuals checked | 457 |
| Documents examined | 498 |
| Potential victims | 130 |
| Police arrests | 32 |
| Vehicles inspected | 16 |
Operation GLOBAL CHAIN Joint Action Days – combating human trafficking together
The Operation GLOBAL CHAIN Joint Action Days are an annual initiative led by Europol and dedicated to combating human trafficking. In 2025, they took place from 1 to 6 June. Swiss police forces participated on 3 and 4 June, carrying out inspections primarily in red-light districts. These were coordinated by fedpol’s Central Office for Human Trafficking and Human Smuggling, which operated a back office in Bern and was represented throughout the Joint Action Days by a staff member deployed to the coordination centre of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) in Warsaw. Liaison officers from a total of around 40 countries gathered there, ensuring that information could be shared immediately between different police forces. In Switzerland, the cantons of Bern, Basel-Landschaft, Basel-Stadt, Fribourg, Geneva, Graubünden, Neuchâtel, Ticino, Valais and Zurich and the City of Bern immigration authorities took part in the joint efforts.
“Since the Operation GLOBAL CHAIN 2025 Joint Action Days, we have received far more enquiries from our Romanian colleagues. Cooperation between our two countries has become much closer.”
Kuno, Deputy Head of the Central Office for Human Trafficking and Human Smuggling