Evros: three out of five border guards arrested for transporting illegal immigrants served … in ΕΥΠ

The Prosecutor of Alexandroupolis today brought felony criminal charges against five police officers of the Didymotecho border control who were arrested May 30 by the Internal Investigation Service for facilitating the entry of illegal immigrants into the country.

In particular, five policemen (one constable and four senior guards – ενός ανθυπαστυνόμου και τεσσάρων αρχιφυλάκων) were prosecuted for facilitating the uncontrolled entry of third-country nationals, leading, creating and joining a criminal organization, bribing an official, abuse of power, transporting ku from abroad third-country nationals who do not have the right to enter Greece, and breach of official secrecy.

One of the sergeants was accused of leading a criminal organization, who allegedly was the leader of the group and gave instructions to the others after communicating with four foreigners appearing in the case file who lived in Turkey and reported the arrival of illegal immigrants at the border.

In particular, the sergeant in question, according to the investigation, had the first contact with one of the carriers of illegal immigrants from Turkey and gradually attracted the rest to this occupation. The defendants denied the accusations, but by order of the prosecutor they were detained and handed over to the investigating judge Orestiada, they will begin to testify from the morning of Friday, June 2. At the same time, the Hellenic Police Headquarters is awaiting a report from the Internal Investigation Service in order to initiate disciplinary proceedings and remove them from work.

An interesting fact, according to information from the headquarters of the Greek police, is that three out of five arrested were seconded in 2018 to ΕΥΠ (Greek Intelligence Service), where they served for about a year.

It is noted that the investigation of the Internal Affairs Service was launched after an anonymous complaint about the suspicious activity of those arrested, followed by other, also anonymous complaints. The officers do not rule out that the applicants were police officers who understood from the behavior of the arrested that something was wrong.

According to the state news agency ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ competent sources, the five defendants, having, as border guards, their main mission – to prevent the approach of foreigners to the border and attempts to cross Greek territory – chose shifts at certain points and times, showing excessive zeal and taking full responsibility for guarding their zone, sometimes stating that they don’t need cameras or the presence of FRONTEX. In one case, one of the defendants, being off duty and with a fever, went to work and worked a regular shift at a border checkpoint.

According to reports, agents of the internal investigation service of the Greek police, who are called “incorruptible”, who have been investigating the case since October last year, were able to record conversations between the police and the smugglers, and gathered the evidence necessary to carry out yesterday’s operation and arrest the accused. In the recorded phone conversations, they can be heard talking to people who speak broken Greek.

However, no conversations about their cash reward are recorded, except for some in which they are heard talking about suitcases and one in which one of them says he cannot justify the money to buy a car.

However, after the discovery of significant sums of money in euros and other currencies during searches of houses, as part of the preliminary investigation, there were reports of the purchase of land and expensive agricultural equipment, therefore, a thorough investigation of the background of the five accused and their financial transactions is being carried out to determine whether they are justified or No.

Like Athens News previously reported, on the afternoon of May 30, 5 more border guards were detained, suspected of facilitating the transportation and escort of illegal immigrants across the border of Greece and Turkey. The total number of arrests in this case to date is at least 10 people. Local media reported that 10 suspects were not yet detained.

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