ATHENS — German police presence at Greek airports will be increased to prevent migrants denied asylum from flying out to Germany, a top destination, the officers looking for people with fake travel documents.

The German Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung's (WAZ) said the program has worked but didn’t explain why Greek police needed assistance from German cops in patroling Greece’s airports.

Germany’s Federal Police said their officers, working in conjunction with Greek police, in 2020 caught more than 5,200 people attempting to travel to Germany with fake documents, usually part of organized human smuggling operations.

Germany’s KNA news agency said that was down from 5,800 the year before although during the COVID-19 pandemic that saw international air traffic limited almost to a halt.

The newspaper Berliner Morgenpost said German police also found another 2,300 were trying to get to other European Union countries that had closed their borders to them, especially Belgium, France or Austria.

The EU’s Frontex border patrol is also involved in trying to keep refugees and migrants from leaving Greece, with most of the some 120,000 in detention centers on five islands and the mainland seeking asylum, waiting two years or more for answers.