Thirteen Bangladeshi nationals were jailed for six months each on Saturday after they were caught trying to enter Malta with fake passports they had purchased from Greece. 

Magistrate Joe Mifsud heard police Inspector Karl Roberts explain how the group arrived at Malta International Airport on a flight from Athens. The airport staff checked their Pakistani documents which seems to have some tampered details. 

The inspector said that when interrogated by the police, the men admitted that they had purchased the fake travelling document for €500 each and were assured that they would not be stopped in Malta since they were travelling from Greece, another Schengen country.

They told the police they stopped in Malta and were due to get onto other flights to Italy and Belgium. 

Magistrate Mifsud imposed the minimum jail term of six months but urged the police to obtain proper travelling documents for all the men so they can be returned to Greece after serving time. 

The magistrate urged local police to flag this "human trafficking route" to foreign counterparts so as to block any future exploitation.

While those searching for a better future in a foreign country deserved attention, he said, authorities could not turn a blind eye to “merciless and unscrupulous human traffickers” who generated thousands in funds to the detriment of exploited migrants.

Such funds, the magistrate said, served to finance terrorist organizations as well as drugs and arms trafficking rings and European and global institutions were to focus all their attention on countering such exploitation, urged the court.

The court also urged the police to contact the police in Greece, Europol and Interpol to inform them of this new route of migrant trafficking under the pretext of free movement within the European Union.

Legal aid lawyer Martha Mifsud appeared for the accused.