Three suspected smugglers caught driving 24 migrants west

[Intime file photo]

Three people have been arrested in northern Greece after being separately stopped driving cars crammed with migrants believed to have illegally crossed the northeastern land border with Turkey, authorities said Thursday.

A police statement said two of the suspected members of migrant smuggling rings were taken into custody in the Evros region, near the border, which thousands of people from the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Africa cross clandestinely every year.

In both cases, the suspects were allegedly found to be carrying eight migrants squashed into cars designed to take no more than five adults.

Further west, police on Wednesday arrested a man found to be carrying another eight migrants in a car stopped for an inspection at the Analipsi toll post on the highway linking Kavala and Thessaloniki.

All three suspects were only identified as foreign nationals.

So far this year, about 3,000 of the 14.300 people recorded as having entered Greece illegally crossed the Evros border from Turkey. The overwhelming majority seek to travel on, deep into Europe’s prosperous heartland.