A total 13 people accused of working for smuggling gangs have been arrested over the past three days after being caught driving cars containing a total 56 migrants through northern Greece, authorities said Friday.
Most of the arrests were made close to Greece’s northeastern land border with Turkey in the Evros region, but one was much further west, near the port city of Thessaloniki, where a car stopped by police was found to have two migrants hidden in the rear luggage compartment.
The majority of the suspects were only identified as foreign nationals. Police said the maximum number of people crammed into a single car was 9, although in most cases the cars were carrying fewer passengers.
Despite the high border fence Greece’s conservative government has erected along the Evros border, thousands of people from the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Africa enter that way every year – having paid large sums to smuggling gangs – hoping to make a better life for themselves deeper inside Europe’s prosperous heartland.
So far this year more than 4,600 people have been detected entering that way. A total of nearly 20,000 undocumented migrants have reached Greece since January 1, just over half having crossed the Mediterranean Sea in small boats from eastern Libya.
