Migrants found in car trunk

Amid a spike in undocumented migration over the Greek-Turkish land border, a 22-year-old man faced a prosecutor in Thessaloniki over the weekend on charges of attempting to smuggle eight undocumented migrants into the country, two of them in the trunk of his car.

Police in the northern port detained the man on Saturday following an inspection of his vehicle that revealed the eight migrants.

Greece has enlisted the help of Europol to tackle an increase in undocumented migrants crossing into the country from Turkey. A mobile unit comprising specially trained officers with equipment giving them direct access to the EU law enforcement agency’s databases is to start operating in Evros in due course.

Attempts by smugglers to elude police near the border have resulted in numerous fatal road accidents over the past year.