Anecdote, so place as much weight on this as you wish. I was working in a Starbucks in North London and sat next to a businessman. He started advising his wife

Anecdote, so place as much weight on this as you wish. I was working in a Starbucks in North London and sat next to a businessman. He started advising his wife/fiancee's distant family members on the phone who had travelled to Greece. He gave them detailed instructions to (1) destroy their passports and forms of ID, (2) claim to be Syrian refugees fleeing from a war-zone and spend a couple of days rehearsing their stories. He also gave them useful advice about the pros and cons of different country's refugee processing systems. There are obviously many migrants genuinely fleeing war-zones (and it is understandable that many others wish to escape oppression/ poor economic situations) but self reported origins + reasons should be taken with a pinch of salt. Many applicants know that claiming to be from war-torn Syria guarantees a successful asylum application due to the Geneva Convention, whilst admitting being an Afghan economic migrant complicates things.