ATHENS – With the country overwhelmed with more than 78,000 refugees and migrants seeking asylum but penned up for two years or more, Greek authorities said they had busted a racket produced forged travel documents and human trafficking.

With the help of Greek Police special forces officers, Piraeus Port Authority officials arrested 29 suspected racket members including the two alleged ring leaders, aged 32 and 36 and said all were of Asian origin, said Kathimerini, without being more specific.

A raid on a suspected safe house in the Athens neighborhood of Kypseli believed to have been used by the racket led to the discovery of 27 undocumented migrants who had been awaiting their transfer out of Greece.

Searches of the suspects’ homes turned up 17 forged passports, numerous stamps and equipment used to forge passports and bank notes, the paper said, with human smuggling a lucrative business.

Many refugees and migrants denied asylum are floating around the Greece living in abandoned buildings and other places to avoid being sent back to Turkey were they first went fleeing war and strife in their homelands before human smugglers there sent them to Greek islands still housing more than 33,700 of them.