Migrant traffickers charged
Three people were charged in Athens yesterday with involvement in a gang that smuggled hundreds of illegal immigrants into Greece after officers tailed the suspects and saw them escorting migrants from Piraeus onto the electric railway, police said. The officers followed two suspects on Wednesday morning and allegedly saw them collect 17 migrants from a ferry that had docked in Piraeus. The immigrants were taken by train to Victoria Square and then to an apartment in Kypseli. Police raided the home and arrested two Turkish men and a Bulgarian woman. The migrants, including three children, were from Asian countries. The immigrants had each paid around 4,000 euros to traffickers so they could be brought to Greece from Turkey, police said. They were initially taken to Lesvos and members of the trafficking ring there bought ferry tickets for the group so they could travel to Piraeus. Police are searching for three more members of the ring, which allegedly helped hundreds of migrants reach Central Europe via Greece.
