Summary
Christos Mousafidis, a police officer on the Greek-Albanian border, mainly deals with drug trafficking and illegal immigration. But this year he is grappling with a different kind of crime: herb smuggling.
In August, some less discreet pickers were arrested in the center of Tripoli, a city in the southern Peloponnese, with a truck load of 200 kilograms of wild oregano and "mountain tea," a very popular infusion in Greece.
Illegal pickers were paid 20 euro cents a kilo (24 U.S. cents) for herbs harvested this year on the border with Albania, which were sold on for four euros a kilo by a middle-man in Italy, according to Mousafidis.
Maloupa, who runs a botanical garden in northern Greece that specializes in aromatic herbs, also lamented the uncontrolled sale of the herbs.
...