Police arrested three Pakistani migrants in Thessaloniki, Greece, after they had allegedly held eight people hostage, ransoming their freedom.
The three men, aged 19, 20, and 22, are accused of several charges such as forming a criminal organisation, illegal imprisonment, kidnapping, aiding illegal migration, and uttering threats.
Police found the eight victims, six men from Pakistan and two women from the Dominican Republic, in an abandoned warehouse in the city. The illegal migrants said they had been held against their will, Proto Thema reports.
According to investigators, the migrants were illegally smuggled across the Greek border with Turkey, in the Evros region, before being brought to Thessaloniki, where the Pakistanis demanded cash from their families in exchange for releasing them.
The money was not paid, and the Pakistanis then reportedly made threats and committed acts of violence against the hostages. The two women also claim the Pakistanis sexually abused them and harassed them.
The case coame just days after another Pakistani migrant in Greece was accused of drugging and raping two teenage girls in his apartment in central Athens.
The two minors escaped, and the Pakistani chased them down the street half-naked before police caught and arrested him.
In July, two Pakistani migrants in Thessaloniki were convicted and sentenced for taking a young man hostage and raping him.
The pair had kidnapped the 17-year-old last year, holding him for 24 hours while attempting to force his uncle to send them money, as well as taking humiliating video footage of the boy to use as blackmail.
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