ATHENS: A sailboat carrying dozens of migrants that had sent a distress signal in rough weather off the southern tip of mainland Greece has been safely towed to port, Greece’s coast guard said Friday. There were no reports of any injuries or missing people.
A broad search and rescue operation was launched after the boat issued the distress call while sailing around 3 nautical miles south of Cape Maleas in the southern Peloponnese region, the coast guard said.
The vessel was safely towed to a nearby port early Friday morning and was found to have been carrying 75 people — 69 men and six women. Authorities did not have any immediate information on the passengers’ nationalities, where the boat had set sail from or what its intended destination was.
Thousands of people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa, Asia and the Middle East attempt to enter the European Union through Greece each year.
Most head to eastern Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast in small rubber dinghies, but increasingly others are opting to take larger boats, such as sailboats and yachts, which sometimes seek to bypass Greece and head straight to Italy. Both routes can be deadly.
Earlier this month, at least 27 people drowned in two separate incidents of migrant boats sinking in Greek waters.
In one, 18 people died when a boat that had set sail from Turkey sank off the eastern Aegean Sea island of Lesbos. Hours earlier, a yacht carrying about 100 migrants sank in a gale, killing at least nine people and leaving six missing.
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Greece: Sailboat carrying 75 migrants safely towed to port
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Greece: Sailboat carrying 75 migrants safely towed to port
- Thousands of people fleeing conflict and poverty attempt to enter the European Union through Greece each year
Police target Ukrainians and Russian in ransomware probe
BERLIN: Police have carried out raids against two members of a ransomware group known as “Black Basta” in Ukraine, and issued an arrest warrant for its Russian head, German prosecutors said Thursday.
The group is accused of using malware to encrypt systems and then demanding money to restore them.
Between March 2022 and February 2025, its members extorted hundreds of millions of euros from around 600 companies and public institutions around the world, the prosecutors said in a statement.
The victims were mainly “companies in Western industrialized nations” but also included hospitals and other public institutions.
As part of a coordinated operation between Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ukraine and Britain, police searched the homes of two Ukrainian suspects and seized evidence, the prosecutors said.
Investigators have also identified and issued an arrest warrant for a Russian citizen accused of being the founder and head of the group, they said.
German police named the suspect as Oleg Evgenievich Nefedov, 35.
Nefedov “decided on targets, recruited employees, assigned them tasks, participated in ransom negotiations, managed the proceeds and used them to pay the members of the group,” the police said.
The searches in Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv were directed against suspected members of the group accused of so-called hash cracking, a method of guessing passwords.
Ukrainian officials also searched the home of another member of the group near Kharkiv in August, whose job was allegedly to help ensure the malware was not detected by antivirus programs.
Black Basta extorted some 20 million euros ($23 million) from around 100 companies and institutions in Germany alone, the prosecutors said.
The group is accused of using malware to encrypt systems and then demanding money to restore them.
Between March 2022 and February 2025, its members extorted hundreds of millions of euros from around 600 companies and public institutions around the world, the prosecutors said in a statement.
The victims were mainly “companies in Western industrialized nations” but also included hospitals and other public institutions.
As part of a coordinated operation between Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ukraine and Britain, police searched the homes of two Ukrainian suspects and seized evidence, the prosecutors said.
Investigators have also identified and issued an arrest warrant for a Russian citizen accused of being the founder and head of the group, they said.
German police named the suspect as Oleg Evgenievich Nefedov, 35.
Nefedov “decided on targets, recruited employees, assigned them tasks, participated in ransom negotiations, managed the proceeds and used them to pay the members of the group,” the police said.
The searches in Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv were directed against suspected members of the group accused of so-called hash cracking, a method of guessing passwords.
Ukrainian officials also searched the home of another member of the group near Kharkiv in August, whose job was allegedly to help ensure the malware was not detected by antivirus programs.
Black Basta extorted some 20 million euros ($23 million) from around 100 companies and institutions in Germany alone, the prosecutors said.
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