Twelve illegal immigrants, Syrians according to the Greek police, were arrested on Friday afternoon at Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos” when they tried to flee Greece while pretending to be handball team.

In particular, the defendants went to the airport to travel to Austria. Eleven of them had Bulgarian passports. In these passports they had replaced their personal data page with another fake one that had their photo. The twelfth had a genuine passport, but it had been issued for another person.

The twelve illegal immigrants went to the airport all together, wearing uniforms and backpacks, pretending to be handball players.

The police search, however, revealed that they did not belong to a sports club and their purpose was to illegally leave Greece with forged travel documents.

The defendants, according to the case file, were brought to the Athens Public Prosecutor.