The Police proceeded to dismantle a ring of illegal migrant trafficking and forgery of travel documents, during an organized police operation in the areas of Nea Smyrni and Palaio Faliro.

The ring had accomplices in Turkey, with whom they cooperated to carry out illegal migration of immigrants to Greece using boats and starting from the area of ​​Smyrna.

The money from these transactions was transferred using a money transfer system, while an office operating in the Istanbul area played a key role in the process.

Also, the members of the ring undertook the illegal promotion of migrants from Greece to other European countries through air tickets and the use of forged documents which they prepared with the equipment found and confiscated.

From their action they obtained exorbitant sums of money that varied depending on the type and origin of the document from 300 to 600 euros per document, while for each illegal promotion of immigrants they received a sum of money ranging from 4,500 to 6,000 euros per person.

3 foreigners, aged 47, 42 and 32, were arrested in the police operationaccused of the offenses of directing and establishing a criminal organization, facilitating the entry-exit of immigrants from Greek territory and forgery in succession.

Additionally, an arrest warrant is pending against the 32-year-old foreigner for violation of the Aliens Act and forgery.

Those arrested were taken to the Criminal Prosecutor of Athens.

They forged classification documents and supporting documents

The criminal organization had developed a professional forgery infrastructure as they used professional equipment – such as laser digital plastic card printers – achieving high quality new type forgeries.

As pointed out in the announcement, the particularly intense activity of the organization is demonstrated by the 622 forged documents seized. The majority of them are identity cards, residence permits and passports of various European countries.

As for the money flows between the members of the ring, they were carried out using money courier companies.

ELAS notes that following a combined analysis of the collected material, it is estimated that since the beginning of 2023, the circuit has collected sums of money reaching 2 million euros while only in the month of October he had organized the illegal trafficking of at least 9 immigrants and the preparation of more than one hundred and 100 fake documents.

At the same time, the announcement emphasizes that a special EUROPOL expert has been invited by the Directorate of Aliens to assist in the analysis of the information using EUROPOL’s mobile data analysis unit (MOBILE OFFICE), while the operation in question is carried out within the framework of the preparation of the National Business Plan (E.S.E.) and the EMPACT 2.2 EAST MED action of the European Union policy cycle led by our country.

From a search of houses and their possessions, a total of 459 identity cards, 161 residence permits, 2 passports, 2 devices for digital printing and laser engraving of plastic cards, 2 portable computers, 8 mobile phones and the sum of 1,125 were found and confiscated. euro.

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