They beat disabled people and made children beg in the streets!

Inhuman traffickers who brought disabled people and young children from Bulgaria and forced them to beg, was brought down by the Department of Combating Human Trafficking of the Attica Police. Police arrested a Bulgarian couple (a man, 30, and a woman, 38), who were trafficking people.

The arrestees would identify people with disabilities or mental problems in Bulgaria, in a dire economic situation, and promise them that they would provide legal work in Athens. Afterwards, they would stack them in a small apartment in Michail Voda street around Vathi Square, where they would let them live in miserable conditions, while the perpetrators lived in an adjacent apartment in order to monitor and control them.

The couple, using constant beatings and threats, forced them to beg throughout the day, in areas around the “Evangelismos” and “Megaro Mousikis” metro stations and in the end, would receive the entire takings, giving them only what is necessary for food.

After the police raided the homes, a total of 14 people were brought in, two of which were minors accompanied by their relatives. Also seized were 2395 euros, diaries, handwritten notes and one privately owned car. The people brought in had no clothes to wear, and thus were moved to a NGO, which had them examined by doctors and provided them with clothing and assistance.

A case file was opened against the couple, following the recent amendment to the legislation, in which the exploitation of begging was added under “trafficking” as a criminal offense. The couple were taken to the First Instance Court of Athens.