Terror links to migrants revealed in secret report
TWO potential links to terrorists have been found by European police sent to carry out security checks on the thousands of migrants arriving in Greece, a top secret report reveals.
The leaked Europol file reveals officers made 68 ‘hits’ on their database of criminal suspects while searching new arrivals.
At least one terror case is linked to people smugglers helping Syrian refugees cross the Mediterranean to Turkey.
It will heighten fears that Islamic State chiefs are using the migrant crisis to smuggle battlehardened jihadis into Europe where they can carry out devastating attacks on civilians. At least one of the suicide bombers who blew himself up in Paris last year had entered Greece on a migrant boat with a fake Syrian passport.
Europol, the EU’s police body, handed its file to top officials earlier this month. It states: ‘There are 68 hits against Europol databases. Two cases indicate specific counter terrorism related investigative leads, of which one case also points at organised crime links.’
The report also reveals that MI5 and the FBI have started sharing some of their intelligence with EU police chiefs in the wake of the terror attacks on Paris and Brussels, which revealed deadly flaws in the French and Belgians’ security services.
The database now has details of 4,044 foreign fighters and their associates. ‘Unprecedented’ levels of information are now being shared through Europol, the report says, including details on the Paris and Brussels attackers’ links to organised crime gangs.