Even More Human Traffickers Arrested in Komotini

Lighthouse in the port of Alexandroupolis in Evros Region of Thraki Perfecture in Northen Greece (credit: Wikipedia)

Greek authorities on Sunday announced the arrest of four individuals suspected of bringing illegal migrants into Greece, during an operation by Alexandroupolis security police and a Rodopi DIAS police team. The four arrested were a 22-year-old Syrian national, a 17-year-old Albanian national, a Greek man aged 19 and a Greek woman aged 20. They are accused of bringing 10 illegal migrants into the country, five from Iraq and five from Pakistan.

The arrests were made after police flagged down two private cars moving along a country road near Alexandroupolis, one driven by the 19-year-old and the second by the 22-year-old.

The 19-year-old driver stopped the vehicle and both he and his 17-year-old accomplice got out and attempted to flee in order to escape arrest but did not succeed. Checking their vehicle, police found that the two perpetrators were carrying five illegal migrants into the country.

The second driver did not comply with the signal to stop and initially got away, whereupon police issued an area-wide alert and the car was spotted by a DIAS police patrol shortly afterward on the eastern Komotini intersection of the Egnatia highway, where authorities successfully arrested the 22-year-old driver and the 20-year-old woman. Another five illegal migrants being carried into the interior of Greece were found in the second car. Police also confiscated the two vehicles, three cell phones and the sum of 515 euros and 500 dollars.

The four arrested will be led before a public prosecutor, while a preliminary inquiry is being conducted by the Alexandroupolis Border Police department in Feres. (AMNA)