Interpol will assist Honduran police with the investigation.
Advertisement
Five Syrian men traveling with falsified passports are being detained in Honduras, police confirmed Wednesday.
“The passports were stolen in Athens”, spokesperson Anibal Baca said, adding none of the men spoke Greek.
This year, 12,600 foreigners were detected illegally entering Honduras, nearly all of them with the aim of getting to the United States, Nolasco said. They will be presented to prosecutors to be investigated on charges of falsification of documents, he said.
The men were detained Tuesday in the capital city airport after officials established that the Greek passports they presented had been tampered with to switch the photographs.
From San Pedro Sula, the men are expected to have continued overland to the US, police said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers scan the passports of each traveler and have access to information about stolen passports.
American politicians have expressed concern over the arrival of Middle Eastern refugees following Friday’s attacks in Paris. Most of the identified attackers have been French citizens, but a possibly forged Syrian document found at the scene of one of the attacks has spurred fear that ISIS operatives may attempt to smuggle themselves among Syrian refugees.
Advertisement
“The government of Honduras is in alert for what is happening at an worldwide level”, said police spokesman Aníbal Baca, reports CNN en Español.
