Greek immigrant smuggling ring, more smugglers stopped

TIRANA, July 21 – Police in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki arrested the head of “the largest immigrant-smuggling operation in the Balkans,” a 51-year-old Greek taxi driver.
The smuggling ring worked mostly with Chinese migrants who flew from Beijing to Belgrade via Moscow and were then taken overland to Greece, police said.
The group also helped people from Albania and Kosovo to enter Greece illegally, according to police.
The 51-year-old – whose name has not been provided by authorities – and a 56-year-old alleged accomplice, also a taxi driver, were arrested early Saturday outside Thessaloniki, along with eight Chinese immigrants.
In Tirana the Grave Crimes Court sentenced five persons to 48 years imprisonment in total for trafficking people illegally.
Two of them were sentenced to 11 years each, two others with ten years imprisonment each and the other with six years imprisonment.
They had managed to traffic to Greece and further on to Europe 72 persons from around the country. Each of them paid 1,500 Euros for that.