Greece

People

Greece is a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking. Victims come primarily from other countries in Eastern and Southern Europe, Central Asia & the Caucasus as well as Southern Asia and Africa. Refugees, as well as migrant women and children, are at particular risk of being trafficked. Their vulnerability and susceptibility to exploitation has intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, with an increase in the number of unaccompanied children being smuggled into Greece. Three types of organized-crime groups are involved in human trafficking in Greece: local groups that are systematically integrated; foreign actors who target Greece as their destination country; and transnational groups that operate both domestically and abroad. Multinational groups made up of foreign and Greek nationals control the market. According to local sources, Albanian nationals operate about half of the female-trafficking networks in Greece and exert control over the escort services in the country. Labour exploitation also occurs in Greece, mostly in the agricultural and tourism sectors.

Greece is largely a transit country for human smuggling and one of the most significant smuggling hubs in the world. With the Balkan route closed off, the most utilized smuggling route now begins in Turkey, traverses Greece and crosses the Mediterranean into Italy. Those who are smuggled originate predominantly from Syria. Since 2015, human smuggling has become the largest criminal market in Greece. People seeking asylum from the Middle East and Turkey have been exploited by criminal smuggling networks, who have adapted to policy and law-enforcement shifts in recent years by using new land, air and sea corridors.

Trade

Greece is a destination country for illicit arms from Bulgaria, Albania, the Republic of Northern Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro. Firearms are also trafficked to Greece from North Africa and the Levant via air, sea and land corridors. These illicit arms are often unloaded in Gavdos, having been trafficked from Libya, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt. Greece is also a transit country for illicit arms on their way to other destination countries such as Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Libya, as well as to the European Union. Suppliers are typically organized-crime groups involved in a variety of criminal activities. Independent actors work on an ad-hoc basis with criminal groups in need of weapons. There have been seizures of arms shipments found on vessels transiting Greek territorial waters; and there are also reports of arms being packaged alongside legal products and delivered through private courier companies from Crete to other Greek islands. Beyond these traditional channels, the darknet is also commonly used to purchase illicit firearms.

Environment

Greece is a source and transit country for fauna-related crimes. Songbirds are the most frequently poached wildlife in the country. The market is fuelled by domestic demand in cities like Athens and Thessaloniki. There is no evidence of a well-developed criminal market for flora in Greece. The most significant flora-related crime, illegal logging, accounts for less than 1% of all logging. Austerity measures and rising fuel prices have resulted in a considerable increase in illegal felling for fuelwood. Firewood is of great value to the inhabitants of remote regions in Greece, who seek a cheap and accessible heating solution. As a result, illegal logging is perceived as socially acceptable in these areas. Reports suggest that Albanian organized-crime groups are heavily involved in this criminal activity. The Epirus region is the most vulnerable due to its geographical proximity to the Albanian border.

Greece is known as a transit country for a variety of non-renewable resource crimes, including petroleum and aluminium smuggling. These resources are smuggled into Europe via Greece, as well as from Europe via Greece to Turkey. The opening of the Skouries mine in 2019 has increased concerns about potential non-renewable-resource crimes.

Drugs

Greece is a transit, destination and source country for cannabis, which is the most widely trafficked and consumed drug in the country. Albania supplies cannabis to most European countries via the Greece-Italy route. High numbers of cannabis seizures take place within the areas of Thesprotia and Ioannina, both of which border Albania. Many of the organized-crime groups in Greece who are involved in the cannabis trade are also involved in arms trafficking, human smuggling, money laundering and forgery. Greece is also a transit and destination country for the heroin trade, which is operated mainly by local organized-crime groups, who collaborate with transnational crime groups. The country serves as an entry point for the Balkan route, which links trafficking corridors from areas with the highest production of opioids in the world with consumer countries in Europe. Law-enforcement officials have noted an increase in the use of an alternative route from Turkey to Greece and into Bulgaria, Albania or North Macedonia. Domestically, Attica, Thessaloniki, Epirus, the Ionian Islands and Crete have all been highlighted as heroin-trade hotspots. Heroin is transported across land, air and sea corridors, with the drug crossing borders illegally via commercial flights, air couriers, postal services and small boats.

Greece is a transit and, to a lesser extent, destination country for shipments of cocaine arriving directly from South America or indirectly via Spain and Italy. Cocaine is usually smuggled in container ships transporting legal imports. The Greek port of Piraeus, one of the largest container ports in Europe, is the primary entry point for cocaine being smuggled into the country. Greece acts as a gateway for Latin American organized-crime groups to gain access to European markets. The majority of organizations in the cocaine trade are poly-drug groups that traffic mainly cannabis. Demand for cocaine within Greece is concentrated in the larger cities like Athens, Thessaloniki and Piraeus. Greece is primarily a transit country for synthetic drugs travelling from the Netherlands or Bulgaria to Turkey. Greece is also increasingly becoming a destination country for synthetic drugs, particularly for consumption by young people and tourists. Reports suggest that the main actors involved in this market are independent low-level dealers, although larger organized groups are also implicated.

Cyber Crimes

*This indicator was first included in the 2023 iteration of the tool

Financial Crimes

*This indicator was first included in the 2023 iteration of the tool

Criminal Actors

Mafia-style groups in Greece are known to be involved in arms and drug trafficking. Local groups are reported to control the illicit cigarette, alcohol and fuel markets. The most prominent domestic mafia-style groups in Greece are the so-called Godfathers of the Night – local business owners, usually of nightclubs or establishments associated with the tourism industry, who run criminal network from their properties. These groups actively engages in extortion as one of their primary activities, particularly at bars and nightclubs. Mafia-style groups in Greece have access to weapons, and the many violent altercations between mafia-style groups have included the use of firearms. Although traditional organized-crime groups in Greece employ a strict hierarchical structure, a more flexible model has recently been developed within the smaller networks, focusing more on particular operations. Loose criminal networks are prevalent in the country and are involved in every major criminal market. These networks often engage in retaliatory assassinations with multiple causes, such as turf wars or revealing information about rival groups after being apprehended.

Operations undertaken to dismantle organized-crime groups have identified police officers as members. Many groups have maintained strong relationships with political elites and magistrates, evident by the lack of prosecutions for crimes such as drug trafficking. There is also evidence of corrupt politicians awarding public-procurement contracts to companies from which they have received bribes. Foreign mafia-style groups in Greece are involved in various criminal markets, including the trafficking of humans, arms and drugs. Foreign actors operate mainly along Greece's border with Albania and, more recently, Turkey, as well as on the Aegean Sea as a whole. The two largest urban centres in the country, Athens and Thessaloniki, have been epicentres of illicit activity carried out by foreign criminal actors, particularly heroin and cocaine trafficking.

Leadership and governance

Greece’s current government claims to have taken a harder stance against organized crime than previous administrations, particularly with regard to drug trafficking. However, its anti-crime policy seems to focus more on street crimes, which are more visible and involve lower-level actors, than on large criminal organizations. The government has also targeted white-collar crime and nepotism as part of its anti-crime initiative. Nevertheless, it remains common to bypass bureaucracy and take part in corruption by offering bribes to public servants – for example, for swifter processing of paperwork. While some progress has been made in recent years, many problems remain, including the absence of a strong legal framework to counteract corruption, inefficient administrative controls and penal investigations, and the lack of a culture of accountability and meritocracy in the public sector.

Greece has signed and ratified all relevant international treaties and conventions applicable to organized crime, including the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. It has also signed multiple bilateral treaties pertaining to extradition and mutual legal assistance. Greece has an organization that recovers assets and funds derived from cross-border crimes and cooperates with the relevant departments of other EU member states. Greek law enforcement usually cooperates with other countries to conduct investigations and seizures related to organized crime. On a domestic level, Greece’s legal framework covers all criminal markets. Legislative reforms in recent years include the criminalization of acts committed by individuals for the benefit of smugglers and traffickers. However, a 2018 report on organized crime drafted by the Greek police did not refer to fauna, flora or non-renewable-resource crimes, despite information suggesting that Greek organized-crime groups were involved in these criminal markets.

Criminal justice and security

The independence of Greece's courts is perceived to be lacking. The judicial process is frequently delayed for considerable periods of time and is prone to political influence and corruption, while irregular payments and bribes are often made in return for favourable judgments. No prisons in Greece have the technology to detect drugs or weapons. The Greek prison mafia dominates the prison system and continues its operations in and out of the prison system. The Greek police work towards combating all forms of crime, especially organized crime and terrorism. However, owing to an increase in criminality attributable to the economic and migrant crisis, and the failure to revise the police-training system since 1994, they struggle to carry out functions not officially prescribed in their policing duties.

Given its vast coastline and islands, Greece has numerous remote and porous entry and exit points that are vulnerable to criminal activity. Due to its geographic position, the country offers an ideal gateway to Europe for traffickers and smugglers from other parts of the world. The Greek coastguard is faced with the challenge of identifying the ever-changing entry and exit points used by smugglers and traffickers. The weakest point is found along the Aegean coast, between Greece and Turkey. In response to the increase in irregular migrants, there has been an effort to improve patrols along the Greek-Turkish border. Another weak spot is Greece's border with Albania.

Economic and financial environment

Anti-money-laundering initiatives exist in Greece, and are enforced by governmental and quasi-governmental bodies. Different entities for each sector in which money laundering takes place are regulated by the appropriate structure. The use of financial intelligence by the Greek authorities has been described as effective, and they have been known to investigate complex organized-crime groups that partake in money laundering. Greece has identified the risk of money laundering as medium-high, particularly in the legal sector, real estate, money and value-transfer services, and nightlife institutions. The European Semester for economic policy coordination monitors economic policies and developments in Greece. They are also assessed in terms of the enhanced surveillance framework established by the EU. Excessive bureaucracy and regulations hamper business expansion. Nevertheless, since Greece's return to the international financial market in 2018, the government has been able to attract new investors and businesses to the country.

Civil society and social protection

Victim support in Greece is inaccessible but efforts for improvement are made, especially in human trafficking victims support. The country operationalized a national referral of mechanisms for victims to support services. In addition, training programmes on human trafficking for police officers have increased, cooperation with civil-society organizations has improved, and there are a number of multilingual helplines that operate around the clock. However, there have been reports of illegal, violent pushbacks on part of the Greek coastguard against refugees at sea, which allegedly have become standard practice since 2020. While witness protection legislation exists, the treatment of protected witnesses within the criminal justice system has been problematic. Significant gaps in the coverage of whistle-blower protection legislation have been identified, most notably that the whistle-blower status can be revoked at any given point in time. National anti-organized crime efforts in Greece focus mainly on repressive measures, rather than on developing social crime prevention strategies. Private companies and NGOs have implemented publicity campaigns aimed at making civilians more aware of organized crime. However, the highly politicized and semi-military nature of the Greek police has negatively affected prevention efforts.

On the whole, civil society in Greece is weak, but there are several NGOs, some of which are supported by the state, that tackle issues such as human trafficking and illegal drugs. There have been some positive developments in media freedom in recent years, including support from parliament to bolster media diversity and the passing of legislation to reform the television-licensing industry and increase competitiveness. Nevertheless, there is a lack of critical commentary on issues of importance.