A new trick to earn money quickly and easily is starting to terrorize citizens in the port city of Patras. Illegal immigrants who flock to this city on a daily basis with the hopes of secretly finding a passage to Europe, are now literally throwing themselves in front of cars and risking their own lives with the hopes of blackmailing car drivers for a quick buck.
The tactic is simple. When they spot a car that is travelling at a low speed, they wait until the driver gets up close and then they throw themselves infront of the car and pretend to be victims. When this new phenomenon began, unsuspected drivers would rush out of their cars to see what happened, and two things would happen. Either a swarm of other immigrants would literally loot the driver (and especially his/her car - this is happening as we speak in the area of Omonia in Athens) and two the victim they thought they hit would begin blackmailing them for negligent driving.
All these so called "victims" refuse to be transferred to a hospital and instead prefer money as compensation so as not to sue the driver. What is worse, some blogs from Patras are also claiming that these extortionist type gangs are also using children to do this. The incidents have begun to increase and drivers who fall victim to this new scam are forced to pay amounts ranging from 50 to 200 Euros.
Article in Greek on newsnow
VIDEO - Indicative is the video below which was filmed by zoogla.gr. It shows how illegal immigrants -most of which are hooked on drugs- literally throw themselves on cars to stop the car so that they can loot it. The video is evidence to all of those voices that insist that Greeks are racists. It is also a warning to our foreign tourists not to commute in this downtown area of Athens (around the streets of Omonia) for they will surely fall victim to this type of violence.
Posts
