Twenty people have been arrested – mostly for power and water network theft – in a series of police raids on Roma camps in central and southern Greece, authorities said Tuesday.
The operations took place over the past two days in the regions of Karditsa and Sofades in Thessaly, as well as Argos, Mycenae, Nafplio, Sparta and Kalamata in the Peloponnese.
Police said a total 12 arrests were made for people allegedly hooking up illegally to the power grid and not paying for their electricity consumption. Another three people are accused of doing the same with their water connections, while one person was arrested for dodging military service and four for not having state identity cards.
Illegal power hookups are common in Roma camps, with authorities regularly removing several kilometers of cables used to link homes with electricity poles.
