ATHENS, Greece, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- Greek police said they have arrested six people on suspicion they held 10 illegal migrants captive for the past month in a shipping container outside Athens.
Police said the six people -- three Greeks, two Pakistanis and one Indian -- were suspected members of an international human trafficking ring that was smuggling migrants from Asia, the Athens News Agency said Monday.
The 10 migrants -- eight Pakistanis, a Somali and a Syrian -- had paid $9,800 each to be smuggled from Pakistan via Turkey to Greece, officials allege.
On their arrival in Greece they allegedly were locked in the container in the coastal town of Aspropyrgos, west of Athens, as the suspected ring members demanded an additional $5,600 each, Kathimerini reported online.
In an separate incident, Greek coast guard officers arrested a suspected migrant smuggler and 35 illegal migrants, including two women and a minor, who sailed in a dinghy from the Turkish coast several miles to the Greek island of Lesbos in the eastern Aegean Sea.
In another incident Sunday, the Greek coast guard arrested 30 illegal immigrants, including six women and three minors, who sailed from Turkey in a dinghy to the Aegean island of Samos, Kathimerini said.
