Greek authorities have begun one of the country’s biggest crackdowns yet on suspected illegal immigrants, deploying 4,500 police around Athens and detaining more than 7,000 immigrants in less than 72 hours.

Most have been released, but about 2,000, mostly Africans and Asians, were arrested. They were sent to holding centres pending deportation in an operation that officials, bizarrely, elected to call Xenios Zeus after the Greek god of hospitality.

On Sunday, 88 undocumented Pakistanis were put on planes, accompanied by guards, back to their home country.

“We will not allow our towns, or our country, to be occupied and become a migrant ghetto,” said Athens’ hardline public-order minister, Nikos Dendias, as authorities discussed plans to build eight detention centres capable of holding up to 10,000 immigrants, in the capital.