A criminal organization that was smuggling illegal immigrants from Turkey to Greece has been dismantled. The arrest of its members and the dismantling of the organization was carried out by the members of the Security Office of the Rhodes Port Authority and the Special Missions Team of Rhodes, with the assistance of members of the Directorate of Security and Protection of Maritime Borders and the National Intelligence Service (NIS), following a large-scale police operation in Rhodes. The members of this criminal organization were also taking care of the illegal immigrants’ stay in Rhodes and facilitating their transfer to the mainland.

A total of ten foreigners were arrested as members of the criminal organization (six Syrian nationals aged 16, 20, 25, 27, 44 and 47, two Turkish nationals aged 22 and 29, one Palestinian national aged 35, one Moldovan national aged 32) and one 53-year-old local resident.

More specifically, in the context of information exploitation and a coordinated police operation, on July 24, a suspicious yacht was spotted by a patrol boat of the Coast Guard-Hellenic Coast Guard landing a sufficient number of foreigners on the Kerameni coast of Monolithos in Rhodes and then moving towards the opposite Turkish coast. Using light and sound signals, the VMS immobilised the vessel, on board of which the 22 year old pilot and his 29 year old assistant (both Turkish nationals) were on board. At the same time, a total of eleven foreigners were found in the wider land area of Monolithos, who were taken to the Central Port Authority of Rhodes. During the preliminary investigation, the 22-year-old and the 29-year-old were identified as the captain and assistant of the vessel and were arrested as the traffickers of the foreigners from the Turkish coast opposite Rhodes, while the vessel was seized as a means of transport.

In the framework of a coordinated operation from land, two private vehicles were found at the point of disembarkation of the foreigners. In one vehicle, a trafficker transported and fled four immigrants from their landing point in the area of Rhodes airport. He then hid the vehicle inside a fenced area of a luxury residence in the area of Kremasti. The same smuggler together with three other aliens in the other vehicle was located in the town of Rhodes, where all of them were arrested. Earlier, the traffickers in question had gone to various places in the city of Rhodes for surveillance of the L.S.-EL.AKT patrol boats and their movements. Indeed, not only did they supervise the points where the illegal immigrants landed from the vessel but also the overland route from which they were then transported. Legal house searches were carried out, in the presence of a judicial officer, in three houses, two of which were safehouses and the third was the aforementioned luxury residence, where members of the organisation were also staying. During the house searches, a total of thirty-one foreigners were found without legal documents, while a further five foreigners were arrested. A legal home search was also carried out at the business premises of the national arrested.

In total, during the investigations carried out, one commercial vessel, three private cars were found and seized. vehicles, twenty mobile telephony devices, one external hard disk, one usb stick, one laptop computer, the sum of seven thousand euros, thirty-four identity cards from other countries, eleven Greek asylum cards of doubtful authenticity, one Spanish residence permit of doubtful authenticity, one French driving licence and sixteen passports of doubtful authenticity from various countries.

The organised circuit in question operated with distinct roles according to which the leading member allegedly coordinated and communicated with the traffickers from Turkey on when and where in Rhodes a boat with illegal immigrants would arrive. The other members of the ring would pick them up from the island’s beach, then hide them from the Greek authorities by taking them to safe houses and ensure that they were provided with fake travel documents so that they could then be sent to the mainland. The criminal organization’s profit from the illegal transportation of migrants from Turkey to Rhodes amounted to 6,000 euros per capita.

The Directorate of Security and Protection of Maritime Borders (DAPTHAS) is analysing and processing in depth the data that have emerged and is investigating the possible extension of the activities of the members of the criminal organisation to other islands of the East Aegean, as well as their cooperation with other members of organised circles, both in our country and abroad, with the same or similar criminal activities.