The Greek authorities detained a suspected migrant smuggler not far from the Turkish border on Wednesday. The man was driving a car with 12 migrants in it.
A Greek police statement confirmed that a car was stopped at a roadblock on a small dirt road near Orestiada in the Evros region on Tuesday (February 24).
Greek police say the migrants, whose nationalities have not yet been reported, entered Greece illegally from Turkey and are believed to have been heading for Thessaloniki.
The car the suspect and the migrants were traveling in was confiscated, reported Greek newspaper Ekathimerini.
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Greece plans to build up Evros border fence still further
Greece is currently working on a new bill to toughen the penalties for those convicted of migrant smuggling, including issuing life sentences in some cases.
This week, the Greek Minister for Citizen Protection, Michalis Chrisochoidis, told the Greek Parliament that his government was working on plans to strengthen the border fence along the Evros land frontier with Turkey.
Chrisochoidis said they hoped to complete the build within eight months, at a cost of an estimated 62.9 million euros, according to the Greek City Times. Once completed, the new fence is expected to extend the already existing border by a further 27 kilometers.
As well as a large metal fence, the four construction companies involved are expected to construct eight elevated observation posts to support the already present surveillance operations underway by the Greek Army.
The height of the existing fence, currently 3.5 meters, will be extended to 4.3 meters and repairs are also expected to be carried out on the current fence, including a 400-meter stretch that collapsed due to flooding, reported the Greek City Times.
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Arrivals in Greece
Since the beginning of the year, according to UNHCR data, 3,090 migrants have arrived in Greece, 1,120 of them via the land border with Turkey.
The majority of arrivals in 2025 came from Afghanistan, followed by Sudan and Egypt. Nationals from these three nations accounted for more than half of all arrivals in 2025. According to UNHCR data, in 2025, 41,696 migrants arrived in Greece by sea and 7,075 by land. At least 103 migrants were recorded as dead or missing during their attempts to reach Greece.
Although overall more migrants arrive in Greece by sea, so far this year, more migrants have arrived via the land border than on any individual island.
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