Forged travel docs abound in western Greece

The arrests of foreign nationals at regional airports in western Greece and on the Ionian islands with forged or stolen travel documents have increased drastically since Greece opened its borders 35 days ago at the end of the lockdown.

More specifically, until Wednesday about 260 people had been arrested at the airports of Cephalonia, Zakynthos, Kalamata, Aktio, Corfu and Araxos as they tried to board flights to cities in Central and Northern Europe, using mainly forged documents.

Police said a forged document could fetch as much as 3,000 euros while the turnover of rackets from their sales reached 700,000 euros alone in the last few days.