Slave-trafficking rings are looking for land workers, even in the… Himalayas, creating new migration paths, destined for the northern borders. In fact, as the authorities, who are “mapping” the routes of the Nepalese to the fields of the Peloponnese, find out, the former victims of the traffickers, who have turned into… slave traders, have now taken on a key role in the illegal transport! One of the last caravans of migrants from Nepal was detected, a few weeks ago, by the border guards of Imathia, a service with an…uncertain future.
Thursday February 1st. Men of the Immigration Management Department of Imathia locate ten immigrants from Nepal in a truck that arrived in Greece from Romania. The traffickers had hidden the migrants inside large packed plastic cylinders, which made up the cargo of the vehicle, and were thus able to pass them quietly into Greece. In fact, the traffickers had given them… bags for their needs. The 40-year-old driver was arrested by the authorities and taken to the prosecutor, while the eight men and two women who were inside the truck revealed to the authorities that their destination was the fields of the Peloponnese.
Tuesday, February 13. Immediate Action police officers signal for a check on a suspicious car on Stratigou Kallari Street in the center of Athens. The driver does not comply and makes a dangerous maneuver towards Acharnon Street. A chase follows, with the DI.AS team. to stop the vehicle a few meters away. Inside the I.X. eight women and four men from Nepal will be found stacked. The three of them were hidden inside the luggage compartment. The driver was a Pakistani migrant who had picked up the Nepalese from a deserted location near the border line with North Macedonia.
In another case, last November, police officers from the Zagori Department and a Frontex unit had identified five illegal immigrants from Nepal, after chasing a suspect I.X. The Authorities proceeded to the arrest of the two traffickers from Pakistan, against whom a criminal case file was filed on a case-by-case basis for violations of the legislation on foreigners, the Road Traffic Code and for disobedience. The driver of the car did not have a license and was under the influence of alcohol.
The traffickers
Traffickers even show their “clients” maps with… routes in the Google Maps application, wanting to achieve their safe movement within the Greek borders. This is what men and women from Nepal reportedly described to Greek border guards. According to the investigation by the Greek authorities, the workers from Asia, who were meant to work in the Greek fields, paid the members of the ring sums of up to 5,200 euros. In fact, the traffickers gave the Nepalese people the opportunity to reach as far as France, paying an additional 3,500 euros.
In the first phase, the traffickers take the land workers from Nepal by air to Serbia, via Cyprus, and from there by car to their next destination, either in Romania or North Macedonia. After hiding in trucks with all kinds of goods, the migrants cross into Greece, through the border station of Promachona, without usually being noticed. The foreign partners of the circuit in Greece receive by I.X. workers from Nepal to desert locations in Central Macedonia and then drive them to their final destination, the Peloponnese.
“The circuits that try to illegally import immigrants, mainly from Nepal and India, from the Hellenistic border, are of particular interest. The Border Guard and Immigration Management Services of Northern Greece have focused on these rings and with the detection and arrests that are achieved we are trying to deconstruct them. A typical example, a month ago a foreign truck driver was arrested who transported Indian immigrants illegally with his truck from the Greek border and left them in the area of Imathia. Following his entire movement, the Immigration Management Service of Imathia succeeded in arresting him and taking him to justice”, says in Sunday’s Free Press the Panagiotis Harelaspresident of the Panhellenic Federation of Border Guards.
Wednesday, December 20. A video-documentary, taken by a truck driver with his mobile phone near the Eleonas toll road, shows a woman from Nepal being violently beaten by five hooded men. The perpetrators crashed their car into the I.X. of the woman, they took her out, dragged her to the asphalt and, after they failed to get her into their vehicle, they grabbed her purse and threatened to kill her. In her testimony, the woman stated that the warning was about the activity of a trafficker’s ring, of which her Pakistani partner was a member, who had been arrested a few days ago by the authorities. “If you deal with the case, we will take revenge on you,” the attackers allegedly threatened, wanting to protect elusive members of the criminal group that traffics migrants from Asia to Europe. Six days before the incident, police officers of the Western Achaia Security Department had arrested two members of the ring from Pakistan and had located seventeen foreigners in a farmhouse. Inside two suitcases were found 1,100 passports and residence permits, documents that in several cases were supplied by irregular immigrants from Nepal, who ended up as laborers in the fields of the region.
In another case, last February, police released seven Nepalese migrants who, on two separate occasions, had been kidnapped and financially exploited by five men from Pakistan. in Kavasila and Psari Vardas.
“The flows today are reduced in Evros and islands. It is, of course, what we constantly say that the policy that Turkey will follow – to “open and close the cannula” whenever it wants – affects the flow and the migratory pressures we receive from the Ebro and the Aegean. Turkey may be bypassed today, but migration routes from the Balkans or even from the Mediterranean (see arrivals in Gavdos) exist and are chosen by the circuits. Unfortunately, the circuits in the Greek territory in the last decade have deep roots and it is very difficult to deal with them”, notes the president of the Panhellenic Federation of Border Guards in Sunday’s Free Press, adding: “The only “weapons” we have are the Border Services Custody and Immigration Management across the country, who have both the experience and the organization to be able to crack down on these rings. And, of course, our needs are increased. The personnel employed in this field or industry are skilled and should not be missed. On the other hand, what we want is for there to be the political will primarily for this whole effort. There are Border Guard and Immigration Management Services in Greek territory that have twenty-five years to renew their staff. In other words, a border guard has been hired since 1999. We are looking for this will!
#Nepal #the.. #fields #Peloponnese