NEWS

Municipal staff tied to migrant racket, arson

An arson attack on the aliens’ bureau of the Municipality of Papagou and Holargos at the end of last month, and a break-in and theft of documents and hard drives earlier in May, is believed to be the work of a ring of civil servants making money through the exploitation of immigrants seeking legal status in Greece, Kathimerini understands.

An inspection of the employees’ offices turned up a large number of residence permits for immigrants that had been wrongly issued, Deputy Mayor Christos Daskalopoulos told Kathimerini. The arson attempt and break-in last month were apparently an attempt to destroy some of this incriminating evidence, Daskalopoulos said.

An investigation by the fire service into an arson attack on the morning of May 31 that destroyed virtually all the archives – paper and electronic – of the municipality’s aliens’ bureau indicated that the arsonists had entered the offices using a key or a skeleton key, sources said.

A week before the arson attack, unidentified intruders had broken into the offices and stolen a computer hard drive which, sources told Kathimerini, contained details of immigrants’ residence permits.

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