Authorities crack down on traffickers in SE Aegean
Port authorities on the southeast Aegean islands of Kos and Kalymnos and the Hellenic Coast Guard announced Tuesday they had dismantled a gang that trafficked migrants from Turkey to Greece and provided them with forged documents to travel to the mainland.
One 43-year-old foreign national was arrested on Kos on Monday before a Kalymnos Port Authority patrol vessel intercepted an inflatable speed boat with eight people aboard off the coast of Kos later in the day.
One of the passengers on board, a 23-year-old foreign national, was identified as a trafficker and part of the smuggling ring.
“Greece is guarding its maritime borders and is fighting trafficking networks that exploit desperate people, often under the protection of the Turkish Coast Guard,” Shipping Minister Yiannis Plakiotakis said Tuesday, praising the operations by the port authorities and the coast guard.
