A Turkish man has been arrested in Athens on suspicion of being a high-ranking member of a criminal organization smuggling migrants into Greece, authorities said Tuesday.
A Coast Guard statement said the 38-year-old suspect was arrested Sunday outside his home in the capital’s Neos Kosmos district, on the basis of a warrant issued more than a month earlier by a prosecutor on the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos.
Another four Turkish nationals and a Syrian man were arrested outside and in the suspect’s home, and are believed to have illegally entered the country.
While the southern island of Crete has evolved into the single most popular point of entry for migrants seeking to reach Greece from north Africa, flows to the Aegean Sea islands continue, and about 650 people have crossed from Turkey to Samos so far this year.
