Derived from the Department of Immigration Administration of the Attica Aliens Authority a criminal organization that acted professionally illegal movement of migrants from Turkey to Greece for the purpose of obtaining illegal financial gain.

As part of a police operation in Omonia, Ilion and Kato Patisia were found and arrested five members of the scheme, including the main one. It’s about two foreigners aged 46 and 28 and three Greeks aged 48, 57 and 60.

A criminal case was opened against them for her – how can it be – crimes formation and membership in a criminal organization, smuggling of migrants, forgery, obtaining a false certificate and money laundering.

The arrested gang members were assigned individual specialized criminal activities that supported the movement of migrants from Turkey to Greece, ensuring the successful passage of vehicles transporting migrants from the border to Athens.

In particular, regarding organization’s way of doing things (modus operandi), created a large car fleet, consisting of 271 vehicles with legal circulationimmediately available for the transport of immigrants, while for the transport of each immigrant they received an amount 2000 euros.

• The lead participant (46 years old) found cars aged 10-15 years of average volume and capacity (such as sedan and SUV) and was a buyer in the physical presence of sellers (individuals or dealers), buying and selling for cash,
• after the seller has agreed to proceed with the sale, he has appointed one of the three members of the organization to carry out the transfer process,
• at the same time, other members of the organization prepared the necessary identity documents (foreigner’s identity card, residence permit, responsible declarations and permits) into the elements of the “straw man” and
• the participants, as alleged transfer agents, went to the relevant departments of the transport departments and presented fake identification documents, deceiving the services and capturing empty turns in the details of non-existent persons.

Thus, the creation of a non-existent tax entity was achieved, which had a number of registration certificates corresponding to vehicles “on the move”, that is, not immobilized and not stolen, so as not to arouse suspicion in the event of an audit.

The transport tax debt of the organization’s vehicles was not repaid, given that they corresponded to fictitious VAT numbers, and for 2023 the total amount of debt was 112,950 euros.

In addition, in some cases cars used to smuggle migrants were sold to other drug traffickers at twice the price as “clean”, with total profits from sales exceeding 2,700,000 euros.

In general, as part of police operations in Northern Greece, they were confiscated. 44 cars used for trading at least 190 immigrants from Turkey to Greece.

The criminal organization, in order to attract young immigrants for promotion, posted a video on a social network with pictures while driving using their vehicles.

As a result of searches carried out in three shops (offices for processing transfers, etc.) and in a house where an entire workshop for the production of forged documents was found, a total of 100,000 were found and seized, including:

• 19 ID cards,
• 7 fake certificates of registration of a citizen of the European Union,
• 41 fake EU ID forms are in preparation,
• 2 fake residence permits,
• 2 fake foreign driver’s licenses,
• a series of false supporting documents and responsible statements,
• 3 fake round stamps,
• 2 stamps with data about the employee,
• 6 mobile phones,
• laptop,
• 650 euros and
• 6 cars.

The detainees, against whom a criminal case has been initiated, were taken to the competent prosecutor’s office.