File photo.
Authorities on the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos have arrested five people suspected of belonging to a ring that smuggled migrants over from the nearby Turkish coast, officials said Sunday.
A Coast Guard statement said the arrests followed the discovery near Kallithea on Samos on Monday of 34 migrants ferried across in a speedboat by two men who sought refuge on the Greek island after being prevented from escaping back to Turkey.
Following cooperation with the National Intelligence Service, the two Turkish men aged 34 and 26 were arrested Saturday, the statement said.
Another three men from Turkey, Syria and Iraq aged 45, 24 and 43 were arrested on suspicion of complicity with the two suspecs, to whom they had allegedly provided shelter, provisions and transportation while they hid from authorities.
All five suspects are believed to belong to a criminal organization that systematically smuggled migrants from Turkey to Greece by sea.
So far this year, about 5,800 migrants have entered Greece illegally, mostly from Turkey although an increasing number is arriving on the southern island of Crete after making the long, dangerous sea crossing from Libya in small, overloaded vessels.