Muslim refugee reveals how so many of them lie and scam Europe for asylum

German officials said Friday that nearly a third of all asylum seekers arriving in the country appear to be falsely claiming to be Syrian, even as Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière called on European nations to take radical new steps to curb the region’s refugee crisis.



So far this year, Germany has received 527,000 asylum seekers — more than any other nation in Europe.



Tobias Plate, an interior ministry spokesman, acknowledged estimates Friday that 30 percent of the asylum seekers are those hailing from another country but claiming to be Syrian. Given the civil war raging in Syria, roughly 87 percent of Syrians are winning asylum in Germany.



Plate said that the number was an estimate based on the perceptions of authorities on the ground, including the German Federal Police, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, and Frontex, Europe’s border agency.



‘‘It is an indication,’’ he said in Berlin, of how hard it is to know the true nationalities of asylum seekers, many of whom arrive without passports.



In an interview on Friday, de Maizière, a longtime ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel and one of the key figures dealing with the refugee crisis in Germany, said Europe needs to enact sweeping changes to its refugee system.



He added that German attempts to aid refugees had been misinterpreted by migrants in far-flung



nations such as Afghanistan as a green light to come to Europe. That, he said, needs to change.



‘‘We cannot close Europe,’’ he said. But, he added, ‘‘we cannot open Europe totally for millions and millions of poor people in the world or even for all of those coming from conflict zones. Impossible.’’