A police handout photo shows the car a suspected migrant smuggler was found driving in northern Greece carrying 13 people. [Handout/Hellenic Police]
A suspected smuggler has been arrested in northern Greece driving a car into which he had somehow crammed a total 12 migrants on the Greek leg of their journey to Europe’s prosperous heartland, police said Wednesday.
The car, which would normally carry a maximum 5 people, including the driver, was stopped at a police roadblock late Tuesday in the Rodopi region, near the land border with Turkey. The suspect was only identified as a foreign national.
Smuggling gangs that are paid to pick up migrants who have just illegally crossed in from Turkey and want to be carried further west routinely employ other migrants or people from eastern Europe to do the driving in regular cars so as to attract less attention.
Transportation conditions are usually cramped, but even then it’s rare to find 13 people in one car. About 2,300 of the total 9,300 people who have illegally entered Greece so far this year crossed the northeastern land border with Turkey.
