NEWS

Police nab migrant smugglers

A 52-year-old Piraeus resident believed to have been running a migrant-trafficking operation has been arrested after being caught transporting 10 Iraqis inland from the Turkish border, police said yesterday. Border guards detained the 52-year-old, along with two suspected accomplices – a 32-year-old Syrian and a 28-year-old Iraqi – after stopping them for questioning on the Xanthi-Kavala national road early yesterday morning. The three had allegedly picked up the Iraqi immigrants at some point on the Greek-Turkish border in two small trucks. Police seized the two trucks along with five mobile phones, believed to have been used by the suspects to coordinate their alleged migrant-trafficking activities. The would-be migrants lacked any official documents, police said. It was unclear whether any money had changed hands for their transfer from Turkey to Greece. The three suspects are due to face a Xanthi prosecutor on charges of people trafficking.

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