Raids uncover illegal visas
Police are investigating evidence that an official at one of the municipalities in Attica has been issuing illegal permits to foreign women who have entered the country illegally after a series of raids in different nightspots throughout the city resulted in the arrest of nearly 30 sex workers. Police late on Sunday arrested 18 women, most of whom were foreigners and who lacked the required work and residency permits or health insurance. Three of them had been issued permits on the basis of visas. However, police say the official who issued the permits would have known the visas were fake. In more raids on city clubs, police arrested nine more women in five night spots for prostitution. Experts estimate that approximately 40,000 women, most of them between the ages of 12 and 25 are trafficked into the country each year for prostitution purposes.
