Officials of the Symi Port Authority yesterday located ten foreign men (Kuwaiti nationals) and arrested their two smugglers, aged 38 (Ukrainian national) and 26 (Romanian/Moldovan national).
The foreigners had disembarked from a sailboat in the Pédi Bay area of Symi. Immediately, a patrol boat went to the area where it found the sailboat without any passengers, as well as a dinghy with two individuals on board.
Initially, the dinghy did not comply with the coast guard’s instructions, but it was eventually immobilized, and its occupants were arrested. Meanwhile, officials of the Port Authority located ten foreigners in the wider land area, who identified the 38-year-old and the 26-year-old as the operators – captains of the sailboat and the smugglers who transported them from the Marmaris area of Turkey.
The foreigners had paid a sum of five thousand U.S. dollars each. The Symi Port Authority, which is conducting the preliminary investigation, confiscated the sailboat.