Krystallopigi

A deputy minister said only four border crossings out of six in northern Greece should open for tourists as the government prepares to ease restrictions on travel, saying the others lack the necessary infrastructure to conduct customs and possible health checks on arriving visitors.

Police near the Krystallopigi border crossing in Florina, northern Greece, have intercepted a vehicle carrying a large quantity of illegal drugs into Greece, it was announced on Friday.

Police in northern Greece have confiscated 105 kilograms of marijuana from neighboring Albania and arrested an Albanian national suspected of smuggling the drugs in his car.

The 26-year-old man was stopped and detained near the Krystallopigi border crossing Tuesday, police said.

Greek police say they have arrested two Albanian men in a border region for allegedly illegally harvesting herbs growing wild on the mountainside.

A police statement Tuesday said the men aged 20 and 22 had gathered 16 kilos of ironwort, a herb used for a traditional tea. They were also charged with illegally entering Greece from Albania, in the Krystallopigi area.

Tens of thousands of tons of cargo destined for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) started to pile up at the northern port of Thessaloniki Friday after Greek farmers blockaded the border crossing at Evzones.

Two Albanian nationals, aged 41 and 43, faced an Athens prosecutor on Thursday on drug-trafficking charges after a police inspection of a tourist coach near the border crossing at Krystallopigi on Tuesday turned up more than 20 kilograms of heroin.