Turkish police have released 57 Pakistani migrants who were chained to a basement in Istanbul by traffickers who tried to extort money from them after being promised to be transported to Europe, the Turkish press reported today.
The 57 Pakistani nationals were found yesterday in the basement of an apartment building in the Arnavutkioi district, on the European shores of the Bosporus, the Hurriyet newspaper reported, explaining that many of these people had signs of beatings.
Police have arrested three men, also Pakistanis, on suspicion of defrauding migrants by promising to smuggle them into Italy or Greece for $ 10.000, Hurriyet reported.
After chaining the would-be migrants in the basement, the traffickers forced them to contact relatives to tell them they had arrived in Europe and ask them to transfer the $ 10.000, according to the newspaper.