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Ten days before the elections, Athens police began checking houses occupied by illegal immigrants in the city centre. According to the official release of the police, they started the check on Thursday and so far, they have found twenty-one illegal immigrants without residence permits. "The apartments in the centre of Athens are outbreaks of epidemics, which may spread various infections," reads the police report, drawn up by representatives of the infectious diseases department and economic police. Three residential blocks were examined, which are located on the streets Saint Constantine, Halkokondili and Menandoru in the historic centre of the city.

Six of the twenty-one illegal immigrants found did not have any document or residence permits for Greece and were taken to the department for foreigners. It will arrange their return to the country from which they came. In addition to the illegal foreigners, police arrested a Greek who had been collecting between three and five euro per person per day to allow them to sleep in the apartment "pens". He worked for the owner of the property who the police are currently seeking to prosecute him under the fast-track procedure for giving a shelter to illegal immigrants.

The checks involved the mobile medical offices of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. There, the illegal immigrants were subjected to several tests to determine whether they are carriers of dangerous infections or suffer from infectious diseases. Radiographs were made to eight of them but the police did not announce the results. The police invite the citizens of Athens, having information of the location of such lodgings for illegal immigrants, to report to regional police stations. "Legal proceedings will be instituted against owners of apartments, where a large number of illegal immigrants have been found," states the release by the police.

Similar checks will be held every day in different areas of Athens, which are known to shelter large numbers of illegal immigrants. The violators found will be temporarily detained in the police department for foreigners until Chrysochoidis detention centres for illegal immigrants start operating.