Hellenic Coast Guard
Two Turkish citizens arrested as migrant traffickers had opened businesses on the island of Samos to cover their tracks.
The businesses, a retail outlet and a restaurant, had virtually no clientele but their owners, both legal residents, were living large. The discrepancy reportedly aroused the suspicion of the National Intelligence Agency (EYP), which began tracking their activities some months ago.
Their arrest revealed that the two suspects, ages 26 and 34, charged between €3,000 and €4,000 for each undocumented migrant they transported from Turkey in speedboats that contained about 30 migrants per operation.
Last Monday, 34 migrants had been ferried from Turkey to a beach near Kallithea, on Samos island.
Another three men from Turkey, Syria and Iraq aged 45, 24 and 43 were arrested on suspicion of complicity with the two suspects.
“It emerged that the arrested individuals are members of a structured criminal organization with long-term and systematic activity in the illegal trafficking of immigrants in Greece,” the Hellenic Coast Guard’s outpost in Samos announced.
Authorities are investigating the possible involvement of others in the trafficking ring as well as possible connections to other organized smuggling organizations.