Terrorists use 1.8m illegal border crossings in migrant chaos as cover, force warns

Potential terrorists are exploiting the migrant crisis to travel unchecked through Europe, the EU’s border agency has warned. Frontex said a “large number” of people arriving mainly in Greece and Italy with false documents are not facing thorough checks or penalties. It said the Paris attacks last November demonstrate irregular migration patterns that could be used by terrorists to reach the EU. It also warned that radicalised EU citizens returning from the Syria conflict are taking advantage of the poor quality checks to easily return home.

With a large number of persons arriving with false or no identification documents or raising concerns over the validity of their claimed nationality… there is a risk that some persons representing a security threat to the EU may be taking advantage of this situation.

Frontex report

The report also revealed more than 1.8 million illegal border crossings were detected by EU member states in 2015, six times the number reported in 2014. The agency said the never-seen-before figure is associated with the estimated one million individuals who reached the EU last year, but suggests many crossed two sections of the external borders of the EU. The report added that there is no EU system capable of tracing people’s movements following an illegal border-crossing, so it is therefore impossible to establish the precise number of people who have illegally crossed two sections of external EU borders.

Two of the terrorists involved in the [Paris] attacks had previously irregularly entered through Leros and had been registered by the Greek authorities. They presented fraudulent Syrian documents to speed up their registration process.

Frontex

Frontex