Police arrest 11 in migrant ransom ring
Police have arrested 11 Iraqi Kurds on suspicion of being members of a migrant smuggling ring which was holding 59 illegal immigrants hostage in a house near the center of Athens until their relatives paid ransoms for their release, officers said yesterday. Authorities raided the house in Neos Cosmos and found immigrants from Bangladesh, Iran, India, Pakistan, Egypt and Iraq allegedly being held against their will by the 11 Kurds. Many of the hostages had been deprived of food and water, and appeared to have been beaten, police said. The suspects made the immigrants contact their families at home and tell them to pay up to 3,000 euros for their release, according to officers. It is not clear how long the the immigrants had been held for, but police said they had entered the country illegally, in rubber dinghies along the Evros River from Turkey.
